Socialist Brazil Indicts Bolsonaro Son for Allegedly Running ‘Hate Cabinet’ Under Father
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Brazil’s Federal Police on Tuesday indicted Carlos Bolsonaro, son of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro; Congressman Alexandre Ramagem; the current head of Brazil’s ABIN (Intelligence Agency) Luiz Fernando Corrêa; and over 30 others on charges of running a “parallel ABIN” illegal espionage operation during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency.
According to Brazilian outlets, the indictment claims that Carlos Bolsonaro, who currently serves as a Councillor of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro, allegedly led a “hate cabinet” within his father’s administration that used information illegally obtained from the purported “parallel ABIN” structure to conduct electronic surveillance against opponents of former President Bolsonaro and “attack” them on social media.
The Brazilian Federal Police reportedly stated in the indictment that Congressman Ramagem, who served as Jair Bolsonaro’s spy chief, was allegedly in charge of structuring the illegal spying scheme and current ABIN chief Corrêa, appointed by current radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2023, allegedly acted to prevent the investigation.
Several Brazilian outlets, such as G1 and UOL first reported on Tuesday that Jair Bolsonaro was also among the indicted, but have since issued retractions and corrections. According to both outlets, Jair Bolsonaro was not indicted by the police on Tuesday on charges of “armed criminal organization” like his son and others were because the former president already faces similar charges as part of his ongoing “coup” plot trial and could not be indicted for the same charge twice.
“The Federal Police consider that Bolsonaro knew about and was the main beneficiary of the alleged scheme set up to illegally monitor people and public authorities,” G1’s correction read. “For the Federal Police, there is evidence that Bolsonaro was part of the political core of the group that acted in the clandestine actions and the instrumentalization of ABIN, but the former president was not formally indicted in this investigation.”
“The Federal Police understood that since Bolsonaro had already been indicted for the same crime of criminal organization in the criminal action of the attempted coup — which also deals with the illegal use of ABIN — he could not be indicted again,” the correction continued.
The indictment comes almost a year and a half after Carlos Bolsonaro and Alexandre Ramagen’s homes were raided by the Brazilian Federal Police during “Operation Close Surveillance,” a probe that sought to investigate the parallel ABIN and illegal espionage accusations.
The alleged illegal espionage, the indictment reportedly stated, was conducted using FirstMile, a geo-localization software developed by the Israeli company Cognyte. The software allegedly allowed those involved to track up to 10,000 cell phones a year in the first three years of the Bolsonaro government. The Brazilian government reportedly purchased Israeli-made software during the administration of former President Michel Temer, who preceded Jair Bolsonaro.
According to CNN Brasil, the list of individuals targeted by the alleged illegal espionage operation included Supreme Federal Tribunal Justices Alexandre de Moraes, Luís Roberto Barroso, Dias Toffoli, and Luiz Fux, as well as several Brazilian lawmakers, public officials, and journalists.
Carlos Bolsonaro criticized the indictment on Wednesday, asking if there was “any doubt that Lula’s Federal Police would do this to me?”
“The reason? I believe you already know: elections in 2026? I don’t think so! It’s just a coincidence!” Carlos Bolsonaro wrote.
Congressman Alexandre Ramagem condemned the indictment and described it as a “narrative” created by the Brazilian Federal Police, stressing that he will analyze the final report “point by point” once he has access to it.
Ramagem asserted that Carlos Bolsonaro was included in the indictment “due to a message received, unanswered, from an employee, when I had already been elected deputy, away from ABIN for several months.”
“The beginning of the so-called ‘parallel ABIN’ came about with a FirstMile system. They discovered that it was my management that demanded control, investigated usage, dismissed the director responsible and forwarded it to the ombudsman, with plenty of documentation,” Ramagen claimed.
“The PF [Federal Police] investigation went downhill. It revealed only creativity directed at the press; ABIN’s desire to have no control; a PF dismantling state intelligence; and, in the end, internal political feuding against Lula’s administration ABIN,” he continued.
The indictment against Carlos Bolsonaro marks the latest in a lengthy list of legal proceedings against the Bolsonaros. Former President Jair Bolsonaro is presently facing a trial alongside several others on charges of allegedly plotting to poison President Lula da Silva and stage a coup to overturn the results of the 2022 presidential election, which Bolsonaro narrowly lost.
In addition, the former president is facing accusations of misappropriating a set of jewelry gifted by the government of Saudi Arabia during his presidency. Another, separate 2023 case culminated with Bolsonaro receiving an eight-year ban from running for office for having questioned the integrity of Brazil’s electoral system at a meeting with ambassadors in 2022.
In 2024, Bolsonaro was indicted on accusations that he had instructed others to falsify a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine card under his name to enter the United States in December 2022, days before the end of his presidential term. Those charges were dropped in late March.
Another of Jair Bolsonaro’s sons, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, is facing a probe on accusations of “obstructing an investigation into a criminal offense involving a criminal organization,” and “violent abolition of the democratic rule of law” for allegedly “articulating” possible U.S. sanctions against STF Justice de Moraes to “coerce” the top court. Eduardo Bolsonaro requested political asylum in the United States in March on the grounds that he is the target of a persecution campaign led by de Moraes.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here
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