In the early hours of Monday, January 29, two armored federal police cars were discreetly parked outside Jair Bolsonaro's vacation home in Mambucaba, a seaside resort 150 kilometers from Rio Janeiro, where the far-right former president was staying with three of his sons. Surprised by the cameras of the Globo television channel, the agents carried out a series of searches targeting the youngest member of the family, Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio de Janeiro city councilor. In addition to Mambucaba, police also searched his main home and his office at the municipal assembly. Two cell phones and a computer were seized.
The Supreme Federal Court suspects him of having been part of a clandestine spying network allegedly set up within the intelligence services (ABIN) under the presidential administration of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) to monitor hundreds of his political opponents using Israeli spy software FirstMile.
Acquired in 2017 under the government of Michel Temer (2016-2018), this digital tool enables people to be geolocated using their cell phone numbers by exploiting security loopholes in the telecommunications network. It would therefore have enabled intelligence services to bypass the judicial authorization required by law to monitor individuals using confidential data transmitted by telephone operators on their customers.
According to the Supreme Federal Court, Carlos Bolsonaro, who managed his father's social media communications during his presidency, is alleged to have used information illegally collected by ABIN to create misleading media campaigns against his political opponents. He allegedly also used them to prepare the defense of his brothers Jair Renan and Flavio Bolsonaro in several corruption investigations.
The full list of people targeted by FirstMile has yet to be revealed. But, according to information made public by the Federal Supreme Court, several of its judges are among the victims, including Alexandre de Moraes, Rodrigo Maia – the president of the Chamber of Deputies between 2016 and 2021 – and Camilo Santana – former governor of the state of Ceara (2015-2022) and current minister of education under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Investigators also suspect that the software was used to monitor Simone Sibilio, the Rio de Janeiro state prosecutor who, between 2018 and 2021, investigated the March 14, 2018 murder of Marielle Franco, a Rio de Janeiro city councilor.
Not yet formally targeted by the investigation, Jair Bolsonaro denied the existence of a "parallel structure" in the intelligence services to CNN Brasil. "I've never received the slightest information about anyone's whereabouts," the former president assured CNN the day after the searches targeting his son, accusing Lula's government of carrying out political "persecution" against him.
You have 50% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.