Police investigate Brazil’s intelligence chief under Bolsonaro over claims of political spying
The former general director of the ABIN, now a federal lawmaker, is suspected of having monitored 30,000 people considered adversaries of the former president
Brazil’s Federal Police have opened an investigation into the former head of the intelligence agency during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential term on suspicion that he organized a large illegal espionage operation against the latter’s rivals, including a governor who is now a minister, judges, lawmakers, politicians and journalists for a total of about 30,000 people, as revealed by the head of the Federal Police a couple of weeks ago. Officers on Thursday raided several locations with ties to Alexandre Ramagen, who in the period 2019-2022 directed the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN). Police Commissioner Ramagen, 51, is now a federal lawmaker.
Ramagen is very close to the former president, so this case adds to Bolsonaro’s multiple headaches. The 68-year-old former president has faced various investigations and judicial processes since he lost the election in 2022 and the immunity he had enjoyed for three decades. Disqualified for abuse of power, he cannot run in the next two presidential elections. He is also being investigated for inciting the riots of Jan. 8, 2023 when thousands of Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court building. He has additionally been charged with trying to keep jewels given by the Saudi royal family. A former justice minister and Bolsonaro’s personal secretary are behind bars for the antidemocratic acts of January 2023.
The Supreme Court, which ordered this latest operation, suspects that Ramagen was part of a “criminal organization that sought to illegally monitor people and public authorities” for the “benefit of the Bolsonaro family.”
Among the espionage operations without a court warrant, investigators mentioned the surveillance of the then governor of Ceará, Camilo Santana, of the Workers’ Party, now serving as education minister in the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; also the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Rodrigo Maia, as well as a wayward Bolsonaro lawmaker and the prosecutor investigating the murder of Marielle Franco (a leftist councilor from Rio).
Investigators said that one of the tools used by the spying ring was a software called FirstMile, manufactured by the Israeli company Cognyte, with which they infected the cell phones of their victims without a court order, according to the news outlet O Globo. The purchase of this spy program and its use have been the subject of media coverage and political debate in Brazil for years, but this is the first time that the investigation officially reaches a former director general of the ABIN agency, who is also close to Bolsonaro.
The most notorious case of telephone spying in recent times in Brazil targeted former president Dilma Rousseff, whose communications were monitored by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, during the presidency of Barack Obama. The wiretaps were part of the massive espionage program revealed by analyst Edward Snowden. That scandal led the Brazilian president to suspend a state visit to Washington and to cancel the purchase of American fighter planes.
Along with Ramagen, 10 other people are also targeted by the operation launched on Thursday, including seven Federal Police officers who have already been suspended from their duties.
The former director of the intelligence agency is not in Brasilia, according to the Reuters news agency, and has not yet made any statement since the police announced the investigation. Brazil is immersed in the southern summer holidays and Congress is in recess. According to the Brazilian press, the police have seized four personal computers, six cell phones and 20 memory pen drives.
The country is already gearing up for municipal elections in October, in which Ramagen is emerging as a Bolsonaro candidate for mayor of Rio de Janeiro, the second most important city in Brazil. This same weekend, the former spy chief was scheduled to meet with former president Bolsonaro, who spends his summers nearby, to campaign together.
The former president has not made any statements either, but his political circle says that the accusations against Ramagen are part of “a persecution” orchestrated by Judge Alexandre de Moraes, one of the 11 members of the Supreme Court and the person who has headed other judicial cases against Bolsonaro aides.
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