Police searched former Brazilian president's home on suspicion of falsifying vaccination certificate

(Patria) - Police searched the home of former president Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian capital Brasilia as part of an investigation into his Covid vaccination records, the BBC reported.

Police suspect that the former president's vaccination record was falsified so that he could enter the United States. Police confiscated the mobile phones of the former president and his wife and arrested some of his close associates as part of the operation. Bolsonaro denied any wrongdoing.

The former president is a vocal opponent of the Covid vaccine. He said he would not get vaccinated and refused to release his vaccination records, claiming they contained sensitive private data.

But an official in the new government of his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, ruled that the information was in the public interest. The record showed that Bolsonaro had been vaccinated in 2021, but police believe the record may have been falsified and launched an investigation that led to Wednesday's raid. According to the federal police, "false data" was inserted into the Covid-19 vaccination records maintained by the Brazilian Ministry of Health so that individuals whose vaccination status was changed could obtain the vaccination certificates required for entry into the United States.

Speaking after the raid, Bolsonaro denied altering any records.

"On my part, nothing was falsified," he told reporters. He also denied being vaccinated. "I am not vaccinated. Period," he said.

The false data was allegedly inserted into the records between November and December last year, when Bolsonaro was still president. Bolsonaro traveled to Florida at the end of December, just days before Lula da Silva was sworn in as president. The US has not commented on what visa the then-president entered the country with, nor what vaccination records, if any, he provided at the time.