Bolsonaro administration spied on 1,800 opponents, investigators say

Feds identified more than 30,000 instances of illegal use of FirstMile, an Israeli software that tracks cellphone geolocation data. Purchased in 2018 by the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin), it was used to monitor at least 1,800 opponents of the Jair Bolsonaro administration, such as politicians, journalists, and lawyers. The names of the victims were not revealed yet.

Two Abin officials have been arrested, five were temporarily removed from office, and USD 171,800 in cash was seized from the home of one of the Abin top officials on Friday.

Twenty-five search warrants were carried out in five Brazilian states. With the operation, one of the Abin buildings in Brasília was sealed while the Feds searched every room for evidence. The agents arrested were on disciplinary leave and used information gathered through FirstMile to blackmail other officials and avoid being fired.

Another target of the operation is Caio Cruz, the son of a former member of Mr. Bolsonaro’s original cabinet, Carlos Alberto Santos Cruz. He was the Brazilian representative of Cognyte, the Israeli company that manufactured the spy tool.

The system was purchased in late 2018, at the end of the Michel Temer administration. It was supposed to be used during the federal intervention in Rio de Janeiro’s security apparatus. Reports now show that much of the illegal monitoring happened, in fact, in Brasília — and that even its use in Rio de Janeiro was not directly related to investigations into organized crime.

FirstMile made it possible to track the location of up to 10,000 phones every 12 months. It cost BRL 5.7 million (USD 1 million) and was not put out to public tender.

During most of Mr. Bolsonaro’s term, Abin was led by a close friend of the former president’s family, Alexandre Ramagem, who reportedly created a “parallel agency” to handle personal or unofficial cases.

Abin produced two reports in 2019 to help Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s oldest son, fend off corruption charges. Last year, a former agent was assigned to investigate business involving another of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons, Jair Renan, to “avoid risks” to his father’s image.

Abin was also reportedly ordered to investigate alleged misconduct in the fight against the pandemic in states and municipalities, in an attempt to shift the focus away from Mr. Bolsonaro’s actions in the federal government.

The Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration has opened internal investigations and started to restructure the agency. Although there has been a major change since then, agents complain that many officials were still closely linked to the Bolsonaro administration, and there’s an atmosphere of distrust in the agency.

Friday’s operation will do nothing to improve the situation.

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