Former President Bolsonaro, last Wednesday in Brasilia after being questioned by police about the coup attempt last January.UESLEI MARCELINO (Portal)
The Brazilian Federal Police arrested this Friday two agents of the Brazilian Intelligence Service (ABIN) as part of a large-scale operation that saw the removal of the number three of the Secret Service from office and searches carried out at the spy service’s headquarters. internally, in Brasilia. The reason is the suspicion that ABIN members, without a court order, spied on the cell phones of politicians, lawyers, judges and journalists who criticized then resident Jair Bolsonaro. The tool used was an Israeli-made software called FirstMile, which is different from the famous Pegasus used in several countries to spy on public opponents, human rights activists or presidents and ministers.
The illegal use of the interception and geolocation system was exposed months ago by the newspaper O Globo, prompting the intelligence service to launch an internal investigation.
It was not disclosed who or how many people were allegedly spied on, but the aforementioned newspaper reported that it was used illegally 30,000 times, and of those, 1,800 times were aimed at opponents of the far-right president. The police operation also includes searches at 25 locations in five states.
The software, called FirstMile, is used to track each cell phone user’s GPS data based on the data the device transmits to communication towers. In Brazil it is sold by the Israeli company Cognite.
Brazil’s internal spy agency ABIN has reported that it purchased the wiretapping program in 2018, when Michel Temer was president, and stopped using it in 2021, when Bolsonaro still had more than a year left in his term. .
According to the Brazilian press, the software was acquired during the public security military intervention in Rio de Janeiro with the argument of espionage against organized crime. But police have now discovered that the computer tool, which allows access to cell phones in addition to tracking their physical location, was made during the administration of Bolsonaro, a retired far-right military officer.
Folha de S. Paulo reports that the two detained ABIN agents are not accused of illegally using the wiretapping system, but rather that they used its existence to blackmail the agency and prevent them from acting on a disciplinary record be dismissed on another matter.
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