Brazilian police conducted a raid on the home of the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, Wednesday as part of an investigation into forged COVID-19 vaccine records, according to The New York Times.
Authorities seized Bolsonaro’s cellphone as part of the probe into whether he and his aides used falsified documents to skirt travel restrictions to enter the U.S. during the pandemic, according to the NYT. Bolsonaro traveled to the U.S. at at least four times during the pandemic.
Bolsonaro, who has long been a critic of taking the COVID-19 vaccine, denied that he ever claimed to be vaccinated, according to the NYT. He also said U.S. immigration authorities never requested his vaccine record.
“At no time did I say that I took the vaccine, and I didn’t,” Bolsonaro told reporters after handing his phone to authorities, adding that his decision against taking the vaccine was “personal.”
He once joked that the vaccines produced by Pfizer would possibly turn people into crocodiles or bearded women, according to AFP.
“In the Pfizer contract, it’s very clear. ‘We’re not responsible for any side effects.’ If you turn into a crocodile, that’s your problem,” Bolsonaro said at the time.
“If you become superhuman, if a woman starts to grow a beard or if a man starts to speak with an effeminate voice, they [Pfizer] won’t have anything to do with it,” he said.
Bolsonaro lost his reelection bid in 2022 to leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, but failed to concede.
Bolsonaro later found himself at the center of an investigation involving an attack his supporters carried out on Brazil’s Congress and Supreme Court after the new president’s inauguration.
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