Brazil’s intelligence agency under Bolsonaro spied on judiciary and lawmakers, police say

RIO DE JANEIRO — A federal police investigation has led to accusations that Brazil’s intelligence agency spied on members of the judiciary, lawmakers and journalists during the administration of former president Jair Bolsonarocourt records showed Thursday.

Among those attacked were the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira, the supreme judge Alexandre de Moraes, the former governor of Sao Paulo João Dória and members of the environmental agency Ibama, according to a Supreme Court document signed by Moraes himself.

Three senators who led a parliamentary investigation into Bolsonaro’s actions during the COVID-19 pandemic were also attacked, in addition to well-known journalists Mônica Bergamo of the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo and Vera Magalhães of the newspaper O Globo.

Police executed five preventive arrest warrants on Thursday to dismantle a “criminal organization” that allegedly illegally monitored public authorities and produced fake news using systems from Brazil’s intelligence agency, known by its Portuguese acronym ABIN.

The group essentially had a “parallel structure,” according to the court document. “The criminal organization also illegally accessed computers, telephone devices and telecommunications infrastructure to monitor individuals and public officials,” police said.

Arrest warrants were issued against the former member of the Secretariat of Social Communication Mateus de Carvalho Sposito, the businessman Richards Dyer Pozzer, the influencer Rogério Beraldo de Almeida, the federal police Marcelo Araújo Bormevet and the soldier Giancarlo Gomes Rodrigues.

Bolsonaro’s name appears five times in the Supreme Court decision authorizing the arrest warrants executed on Thursday, which mentions that one of the suspects said he had a “direct line” to Bolsonaro.

A lawyer for Bolsonaro did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The former president is not formally accused of ordering any type of espionage. But the police investigation found “that the ABIN had been instrumentalized, with a clear institutional deviation from clandestine actions, to monitor people related to investigations involving relatives” of Bolsonaro, according to the court document.

When asked if Bolsonaro faces legal risk in the case, law professor Rodrigo Sánchez Ríos of the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná said yes.

“It is widely accepted that Bolsonaro was aware of the illegal espionage plan in the intelligence agency. The monitored authorities had a political future that was politically important for Bolsonaro,” said Sánchez Ríos.

“If this connection is proven, he could be considered responsible for several crimes, whether related to his negligence or his action,” Sánchez Ríos added.

Police also said their investigations showed the group allegedly attempted to interfere in several police investigations, including some that targeted or involved two of Bolsonaro’s sons, Jair Renan and Flávio, a sitting senator.

The people targeted by the arrest warrants are suspected of having committed crimes of criminal organization, attempted abolition of the democratic rule of law, clandestine interception of communications and invasion of other people’s computer devices, the police said.

Police say that under the surveillance of former intelligence chief Alexandre Ramagem, the group used software called FirstMile, developed by the Israeli company Cognyte.

The 187-page police report included screenshots of exchanges between targets from Thursday’s police operation.

In a WhatsApp conversation held in August 2021 about investigations by Moraes, one of them says “this bald man deserves something more,” referring to Moraes. Another responds: “Just a 7.62,” which seems to refer to a type of rifle. The interlocutor responds in English “head shot”.

In its opinion on the case, the Attorney General’s Office said the evidence points to the existence of a broader criminal organization.

“The structure infiltrated in the Brazilian Intelligence Agency represented only one cell of a broader criminal organization, focused on attacking opponents, institutions and republican systems,” said the Attorney General’s Office.

This is just one court case among many linking Bolsonaro, who led the country between 2019 and 2022, with irregularities.

The far-right leader was charged last week on suspicion of embezzlement, money laundering and criminal conspiracy in relation to luxury jewelry from Saudi Arabia, deepening his legal problems.

In June of last year, Brazil The highest electoral court declared Bolsonaro ineligible to run in any election. until 2030 for casting unfounded doubts about the country’s electronic voting system.

Victims of alleged illegal spying responded with outrage to the reports on Thursday. Senator Alessandro Vieira wrote in X that “criminal espionage and online attacks” were “typical of dictatorial governments.”

For Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, vice president of the commission that examined Bolsonaro’s management of the pandemic during which more than 700,000 people died in Brazil, Thursday’s reports bring “a tragic aspect to the scene,” according to a statement from the Senate press office.

“While Brazilians were dying, the previous government, instead of worrying about buying vaccines, was worried about persecuting and monitoring political opponents,” he said.

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Associated Press journalist Mauricio Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.