EXPLAINER

Court records allege that under Bolsonaro’s aide, Brazil’s spy agency snooped on politicians, judges and other officials.

Brazilian police arrested five people on Thursday as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations that the country’s spy agency was weaponised by former President Jair Bolsonaro during his time in office from 2019 to 2023.

Federal police allege that Bolsonaro’s spy chief, Alexandre Ramagem, was running a “criminal organisation of high offensive capability” within the Agencia Brasileira de Inteligencia (Abin), the country’s top intelligence agency.

Here’s what we know about the investigation:

Did Bolsonaro order Ramagem to spy on his rivals?

• Abin is accused of illegally spying on government officials during the former president’s right-wing administration.
• While Bolsonaro is not formally accused of ordering any espionage, the court decision that authorised arrests mentioned his name five times, and mentioned how one of the suspects had claimed to have a “direct line” to Bolsonaro.
• A 187-page police document includes screenshots of WhatsApp message exchanges between those arrested by the police on Thursday.
• According to the police, Abin used a software called FirstMile, developed by the Israeli company Cognyte, under Ramagem’s watch.
• The agency was used to illegally spy on tax auditors who were investigating the president’s eldest son, Flavio Bolsonaro, according to prosecutors. The intention was to find dirt on them to halt a corruption probe from when the younger Bolsonaro was a Rio de Janeiro councilman.

Who did Abin allegedly spy on?

• A Supreme Court document contains names of several Brazilian public figures who were allegedly targets of the snooping operation.
• Some of the people named included Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, former Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria and current head of Brazil’s lower house, Arthur Lira.
• Names of senior officials from the environmental agency Ibama were also on the list. As president, Bolsonaro cut the budget of Ibama by 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, while also cutting funding for other environmental agencies. When he was in office, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon surged, and Bolsonaro was accused of facilitating this destruction.
• Three senators who led a parliamentary investigation into Bolsonaro’s conduct during COVID-19 were also on the list.
• Journalists Monica Bergamo of Folha de S Paulo newspaper and Vera Magalhaes of O Globo newspaper were also targeted, the document alleges.

Who was arrested and on what charges?

Police carried out search and seizure raids, and issued preventive, pre-trial arrest warrants on Thursday. The warrants were against:

• Mateus de Carvalho Sposito, former member of the Secretariat of Social Communication, a government body in charge of public relations;
• Richards Dyer Pozzer, an entrepreneur;
• Rogerio Beraldo de Almeida, an influencer;
• Marcelo Araújo Bormevet, a federal police officer; and
• Giancarlo Gomes Rodrigues, a military officer.
• The police said the arrest warrants were issued against individuals suspected of criminal organisation, the clandestine interception of communications and for spying on computer devices belonging to others.

Why is this important?

The newest allegations add to a slew of probes against Bolsonaro.

Already rendered ineligible to run for office in 2030 after a failed 2022 re-election campaign, he is currently embroiled in last week’s jewellery embezzlement case as well as a case pertaining to him forging his COVID-19 vaccine records.

What are the reactions to the allegations?

• The former president’s son, Flavio Bolsonaro denied any links with Abin, saying the details of the investigation were released to hamper former Abin head Ramagem’s intentions to run for Rio de Janeiro mayor this year.
• Brazilian senator Alessandro Vieira, posted on X that the “criminal espionage and online attacks” were “typical of dictatorial governments.”
• Senator Randolfe Rodrigues invoked Bolsonaro’s conduct during COVID-19, which he dismissed as a “little flu”, playing down its severity. “While Brazilians were dying, the previous government, instead of worrying about buying vaccines, was concerned with persecuting and monitoring political opponents,” he said.