Brazil
The ex-president's family's retreat was targeted early Monday as nine search warrants were executed in other parts of the country
Monday, January 29, 2024, 12:55 p.m. GMT
Brazilian police have raided former President Jair Bolsonaro's vacation home as part of a widening investigation into an illegal spying business that allegedly existed during his far-right government.
Federal police reportedly arrived at Bolsonaro's family retreat in Mambucaba, a picturesque coastal village 126 miles west of Rio, early Monday morning as nine search warrants were executed in various parts of the country.
The ex-president had been staying at the property with his three politician sons, Carlos, Eduardo and Flávio Bolsonaro, although they had reportedly left the house earlier in the day. Some local media reports suggested that the Bolsonaros fled by boat, but Bolsonaro's lawyer Fabio Wajngarten insisted that the men had gone fishing “long before” at 5 a.m [getting] “Any news” about the operation.
The main target was the ex-president's second son, Carlos, whose offices in Rio City Hall and his beachfront villa in western Rio were also raided.
GloboNews said the raids were ordered due to police suspicions that 41-year-old Carlos, one of his father's closest confidants, had illegally received intelligence material from his father's former intelligence chief, Alexandre Ramagem.
Ramagem, who headed Brazil's Abin intelligence agency during Bolsonaro's 2019-22 government, were raided by police last Thursday as part of an investigation into illegal snooping. Among other things, Ramagem is accused of being involved in a “criminal organization” that used Israeli spy software to track down Bolsonaro's political enemies during his time at the helm of Abin. Police also reportedly suspect that intelligence material was produced by members of a “parallel” intelligence agency for the benefit of members of the Bolsonaro clan. Ramagem has denied wrongdoing and described the allegations as an attempt to derail his political career and the Bolsonarist right as a whole.
Bolsonaro, who has not yet commented on Monday's raid on his son's home, described last week's operation against Ramagem as a “relentless persecution.”
Gleisi Hoffmann, one of current Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's closest allies, called the espionage allegations “one of the biggest scandals in Brazilian history.”
Lula's Communications Minister Paulo Pimenta wrote on social media: “Only in dictatorships do you use the state apparatus to persecute your political rivals and cover up the crimes of your friends.”
Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio city councilor and social media expert, is one of the best-known and most controversial figures in the world of Bolsonarismo, famous for his fierce and often puzzling attacks on X against his father's political opponents.
In a public declaration of their closeness, Carlos traveled with Bolsonaro's wife Michelle Bolsonaro in the president's Rolls-Royce to his father's inauguration in 2019. Bolsonaro calls Carlos “my pit bull.”
Search warrants were also executed in Salvador on Monday; the capital Brasília and a nearby city called Formosa. A federal police source told GloboNews that officers confiscated a computer belonging to Abin. Carlos Bolsonaro has not yet commented on the operation.
In a statement, federal police said their investigation was “investigating a criminal organization that has set up shop in Abin to illegally monitor authorities and other individuals.” It said Monday's raids targeted the alleged “political core” of that organization and were intended to help “identify the main recipients and beneficiaries of information illegally produced in Abin through clandestine operations.” The statement said those under investigation may face charges including hacking into other people's computer devices, illegally intercepting communications without a court order and participating in a criminal organization.
Monday's dramatic events cast Bolsonaro's political future into even greater doubt. Last year he was banned from running until 2030 for spreading disinformation about Brazil's electoral system.
The 68-year-old populist is also the target of a series of criminal investigations into his conduct as president of South America's largest democracy. These include his handling of the Covid pandemic, which has killed more than 700,000 Brazilians, and his role in allegedly inciting the January 8, 2023 uprising in Brasília, which Lula's government has described as an attempted coup.
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