Brazil’s Federal Police indicted former President Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) and his former aide Mauro Cid for criminal association and falsifying data in official information systems. The indictment refers to a supposed scheme to add false information to Covid-19 vaccination cards.
According to the Federal Police, vaccination cards of Bolsonaro’s relatives had been fraudulently recorded doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The scheme allegedly altered the vaccination records of the former president’s 12-year-old daughter, Laura Bolsonaro. The inclusion would have been made between November 2021 and December 2022 in the Information System of the National Immunization Program (SI-PNI, in Portuguese) and the National Health Data Network (RNDS, in Portuguese) of the Ministry of Health.
“The investigation points out that the group's goal [not being vaccinated] was to maintain the identity element cohesive about their ideological agendas. That is, sustain the discourse aimed at attacks on vaccination against COVID-19," the Federal Police said.
Criminal association has a penalty of one to three years in prison. Entering false data into an information system may lead to two to 12 years in prison. It is now up to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF, in Portuguese) to decide whether to file the complaint or send it to the courts.
Read below the full list of people indicted:
Jair Messias Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president;
Mauro Barbosa Cid, Army colonel and Bolsonaro’s former aide;
Gabriela Santiago Cid, Mauro Cid’s wife;
Gutemberg Reis de Oliveira, federal deputy (MDB Party, Rio de Janeiro state);
Luis Marcos dos Reis, an army sergeant who was part of Mauro Cid's team;
Farley Vinicius Alcântara, a doctor who allegedly issued fake vaccination cards to Cid's family;
Eduardo Crespo Alves, military officer;
Paulo Sérgio da Costa Ferreira
Ailton Gonçalves Barros, former army major;
Marcelo Fernandes Holanda;
Camila Paulino Alves Soares, a nurse at Duque de Caxias City Hall;
João Carlos de Sousa Brecha, then Secretary of Government of Duque de Caxias;
Marcelo Costa Câmara, Bolsonaro’s special advisor;
Max Guilherme Machado de Moura, Bolsonaro’s advisor and security guard;
Sergio Rocha Cordeiro, Bolsonaro’s advisor and security guard;
Cláudia Helena Acosta Rodrigues da Silva, a civil servant from the city of Duque de Caxias;
Edited by: Vivian Virissimo
