The Brazilian federal police raided the home and offices of Brazil’s former spy chief during the president’s government Jair Bolsonaror, as part of an investigation into the alleged illegal tracking of thousands of people, including two Supreme Court justices and a key ally of the current president, Lula da Silva.
Alexandre Ramagemformer head of the federal police who headed Brazil’s intelligence agency between 2019 and 2022, Abin, is pointed out as part of an investigation into a “criminal organization” that allegedly used Israeli spy software to track Bolsonaro’s political enemies. Six mobile phones, four laptops and 20 data storage devices were reportedly seized in the Ramagem department in Brasilia.
Ramagem, 51 years old, congressman from Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, did not comment on the raids, which Bolsonaro called “relentless persecution.” The Brazilian press assures that the investigation focuses on a secret unit supposedly created within the Brazilian intelligence agency, called the National Intelligence Center, which since July 2020 set out to collect information on alleged “threats to the security and stability of the State”.
According to Folha de São Paulo, the unit was made up of federal police agents close to Ramagem and the Bolsonaro family, and became known as the “parallel intelligence agency” in Brazil. And it is suspected that the group was using a spy software called FirstMile manufactured by the Israeli firm Cognyteto illegally spy on government opponents.
In statements to the GloboNews television network, the head of the Brazilian federal police, Andrei Rodrigues, estimated that The group would have spied on around 30,000 people without judicial authorization. Most of the group’s alleged objectives have not yet been specified, but it has emerged that the group includes public officials, journalists, judges, lawyers, politicians and police officers.
And the name of two judges of the Supreme CourtAlexandre de Moraes and Gilmar Mendes, and a former state governor from Lula’s leftist Workers’ Party, Camilo Santana, who became education minister last January after Lula defeated Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election.
