The Brazilian Federal Police searched this Wednesday the residence of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in an operation related to the alleged falsification of vaccination certificates against covid-19, official sources reported. According to investigations, the vaccination data of the former president, several of his relatives and advisers they would have been manipulated to obtain permission to enter the United States.

The actions of this Wednesday seek clarify the actions of an alleged criminal organization accused of including false vaccination data against covid-19 in the systems that collected this information in the Ministry of Health. “With that, these people were able to issue the respective vaccination certificates and use them to circumvent the current sanitary restrictions imposed by public authorities (Brazil and the United States) aimed at preventing the spread of contagious diseases, in this case, the covid pandemic.” , says the statement released by the Federal Police.

The operation, in which the authorities comply with six arrest warrants and 16 raids in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro, was authorized by Supreme Court magistrate Alexandre de Moraes. Until now, at least five people have been detained by the authorities, including two former advisers and a member of the former president’s security team. The far-right leader’s mobile phone was seized by the authorities during the search. According to the investigations, the false insertions occurred in November 2021 and December 2022, before Bolsonaro’s trip to the United States on December 30, two days before leaving office.

After launching the operation, Bolsonaro emphatically denied having been immunized against the covid and having falsified the details of the vaccination certificate. “They never asked me for the vaccination certificate anywhere and there is no adulteration on my part. I did not take the vaccine, full stop. I never denied that,” he told reporters in front of his residence in Brasilia. The former ruler, however, did recall that his wife Michelle was vaccinated during a trip to the United States in September 2021.

Bolsonaro had been summoned by the Federal Police to testify this Wednesday, after the raid on his residence, but His lawyers have managed to postpone that process, with the allegation that they have not yet had access to the records of the process. The far-right leader has always been a denier of the covid-19 pandemic and publicly denied having been vaccinated against the virus on several occasions.