Rio de Janeiro: On Monday, Brazilian police conducted a raid on the residence and workplace of Carlos, the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, as part of an ongoing probe into claims of unlawful espionage on the far-right leader’s inner circle.
The investigation centers on claims that, between 2019 and 2022, Brazil’s official spy service unlawfully gathered intelligence and followed the whereabouts of hundreds of people thought to be Bolsonaro’s rivals.
In the most recent stage of their investigation, federal police announced they had executed nine search and seizure warrants in relation to a “criminal organization set up in the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) to illegally monitor public officials and others.”
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the head of the electoral court and a suspected target of the espionage, gave the go-ahead for the raids.
Carlos Bolsonaro, a city councilor in Rio de Janeiro and the second of Bolsonaro’s four sons, was designated as a probe target in his decision.
Additionally, on Thursday, police searched the residence and workplace of Alexandre Ramagem, the former head of Bolsonaro’s intelligence division and current federal legislator for the former president’s Liberal Party.
With the aim of identifying “the main recipients and beneficiaries of the information produced illegally within Abin via clandestine operations,” police said they were now focusing on the “political core” of the suspected domestic spying ring.
During the raids, Carlos Bolsonaro’s Rio city hall offices and residence were searched.
According to police, they had also targeted locations in the northeastern city of Salvador, the capital city of Brasilia, the neighboring city of Formosa, and the vacation town of Angra dos Reis, which is located 150 kilometers (95 miles) west of Rio.
As federal investigators left, Globo News TV showed the 68-year-old former president and 41-year-old Carlos Bolsonaro outside a home in Angra dos Reis.
According to investigators, Abin illegally spied on public leaders such as state governors, former lower house speaker, and judges of the supreme court using intelligence-gathering techniques and Israeli-made surveillance software called FirstMile.
