A Saudi Rolex Sold in a U.S. Mall Could Get Bolsonaro Arrested

It has been a bad 10 months for Jair Bolsonaro.

He lost re-election as Brazil’s president. Thousands of his supporters stormed Brazil’s halls of power. And he was blocked from holding elected office for seven years.

Now things could soon get worse: Across Brazil, both his critics and supporters speculate that the next twist might be his arrest.

Mr. Bolsonaro, 68, has become ensnared in a series of investigations into fraud and election tampering that have already landed some of his closest allies in jail and that, over the past several weeks, appear to be closing in on him.

But one case may pose the biggest threat to the former president in the near term, and it revolves around an alleged scheme that resembles a small-scale mafia scam: Selling embezzled watches at a shopping mall outside Philadelphia.

This month, Brazilian federal police carried out raids as part of an investigation into what it says was a broad conspiracy by Mr. Bolsonaro and several allies to embezzle expensive gifts he received as president from Saudi Arabia and other countries. In one case, authorities accuse Mr. Bolsonaro’s personal aide of selling a diamond Rolex watch and a Patek Philippe watch to a jewelry shop at the Willow Grove Park mall in Pennsylvania last year.

Mr. Bolsonaro ultimately received at least some of the $68,000 from the sale in cash, federal police officials said.

In an interview, Mr. Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Paulo Cunha Bueno, said that whether Mr. Bolsonaro attempted to sell the diplomatic gifts is irrelevant because a government panel had previously ruled that much of the jewelry is Mr. Bolsonaro’s personal property, not the state’s. “It’s his right,” Mr. Bueno said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Some other experts in Brazilian law said that such expensive gifts are clearly state property and that Mr. Bolsonaro appeared to be in legal trouble. “To me, it seems very unlikely that the president would not be criminally charged for embezzlement,” said Miguel Reale, Brazil’s former minister of justice under a different president. Such a charge can carry penalties of up to 12 years in prison, he said. “It’s quite a delicate situation for the president.”

The case is yet another parallel between Mr. Bolsonaro and Donald J. Trump. Two far-right, nationalist leaders who attacked their nation’s democratic institutions, they both have now been accused of mishandling foreign gifts they received as president.