The Federal Police also suspect that, in addition to being added to the former president’s assets, the money obtained from selling these objects was used to fund Mr. Bolsonaro’s stay in the United States. After the elections, he left Brazil on December 30, 2022, and returned only in March 2023.

Besides Mr. Bolsonaro, the Federal Police filed charges against 11 other individuals, including Lieutenant Colonel Mauro Cid, a former aide-de-camp who signed a plea deal. The crimes identified are money laundering, embezzlement, and conspiracy to commit a crime.

On Monday, Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court lifted the case’s confidentiality and sent the documents to the Prosecutor General’s Office, which must now decide whether to file an information against the suspects. The office can also pursue other avenues, such as requesting new investigations or recommending the case be closed.

Initially, the Federal Police stated that the values involved in the embezzlement attempt totaled around R$25 million. This piece of information was in the final part of the report but was a “material error” that was corrected. In other parts of the document, the correct value is reported as $1,227,725.12 or R$6,826,151.66.

According to the Federal Police, the investigation identified a criminal organization dedicated to embezzling the gifts. The report mentions at least five sets of valuable items negotiated abroad, such as rose gold and white gold jewelry kits, sculptures, and watches.

For the Federal Police, “the proceeds from these sales were converted into cash and added to the former president’s personal assets through go-betweens, avoiding the formal banking system to conceal the origin, location, and ownership of the funds.”

The document goes further by presenting elements indicating that Mr. Bolsonaro knew about the moves. In a conversation with Colonel Cid, he is informed about the auction date in New York for the “rose gold kit.” In response, showing his awareness, the former president replied: “Selva”—a military slang meaning “roger that.”

The Federal Police also identified “cookies” and browsing history from Mr. Bolsonaro’s phone, seized by agents, showing visits to the Fortuna Auction website, responsible for the auction.

According to the investigators, the group used two methods to embezzle the goods. The first was simply not registering the gift delivery, so it could be directly taken by the former president without being assessed by the Assistant Office of Historical Documentation (GADH).

The second method was implemented by Marcelo Vieira da Silva, then head of GADH, to embezzle registered items. In these cases, the department allocated the received gifts to Mr. Bolsonaro’s private collection, disregarding the value of the objects and illegally expanding the concept of “very personalized goods.”

In testimony, Marjorie de Freitas Guedes, former GADH coordinator, said that out of approximately 9,000 items gifted to Mr. Bolsonaro, only 55 were classified as public collection. For the Federal Police, this demonstrates the “disregard for public interest” that the department was adopting.

The Federal Police also said that Colonel Cid and his father, General Mauro Lourena Cid, transferred $68,000 in cash to Bolsonaro, obtained from selling two watches, including a Rolex. The funds were deposited on June 13, 2022, into a bank account in Lourena Cid’s name.

Investigators report that the amounts were also delivered to Osmar Crivelatti, a former president’s aide. According to the investigative report, the goal was “to hinder the detection of the illicit funds’ return to the former president’s assets by Brazilian authorities.”

The funds obtained from selling other jewelry, amounting to $18,000, were brought in cash to Brazil by Colonel Cid and delivered to Mr. Bolsonaro, “reinforcing the group’s modus operandi to secure the proceeds from previous crimes.”

For the investigators, Mr. Bolsonaro used part of this money to support himself during his stay in the U.S., as data crossings show that he “possibly did not use financial resources deposited in his bank accounts” at Banco do Brasil and BB Americas during this period.

According to the report, the former president’s bank accounts showed approximately the same balance in December 2022 and April 2023, “revealing that he possibly did not conduct financial transactions (credit/debit) while residing in the United States.”

The Federal Police also said that after the jewelry case was revealed by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, the alleged conspirators “structured a clandestine operation to recover the goods, which were in businesses in the United States, planning, coordinating, and executing necessary acts to conceal the location and movement of the items embezzled from the public collection and to secure, through concealment of location and ownership, the proceeds obtained from selling part of the embezzled items.”

According to the investigators, there was a division of tasks in the operation to bring the objects back, and former Secretary of Communication Fabio Wajngarten, lawyer Frederick Wassef, and Colonel Cid himself were assigned to the mission. At the time, however, people close to Mr. Bolsonaro claimed the jewelry had not left Brazil and was stored at former pilot Nelson Piquet’s farm, where other items from the former president’s personal collection were kept.

In a statement, Mr. Bolsonaro’s defense said that as head of the Executive Branch, he had “no direct or indirect influence” over the analysis of gifts offered to him during his term. “The gifts offered to a president of the Republic follow a strict protocol of treatment and cataloging, which the president has no direct or indirect influence over, being developed by the GADH.”

Mr. Vieira’s defense said that his actions as head of GADH were “carried out with total care and attention to these documents, following the current legislation, making his inclusion in this investigation incomprehensible.”

Mr. Wajngarten said he was charged only for performing his role as a lawyer and did not participate in the operation to repurchase the jewelry. “My legal advice was that the gifts received by the former president of the Republic should immediately be returned to the public spending watchdog TCU, to defend against any doubt about questions related to public interest. And legal advice is not a crime,” he said.

Colonel Cid’s and his father’s attorneys declined to comment. Mr. Wassef did not respond to contact attempts. Mr. Crivelatti could not be reached.