Head of Lula’s Abin is mentioned as being investigated by the PF – 03/11/2024 – Power

Confidential documents from the Federal Police investigation into the alleged illegal arapongagem in the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government show that the current director general of Abin (Brazilian Intelligence Agency), Luiz Fernando Corrêa, was the subject of at least four reports, one of which of them classifies it as “investigated”.

A Sheet had access to these documents, which are part of the investigation under the report of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) minister Alexandre de Moraes.

Moraes’ decisions made public so far only list statements from the PF that the current Abin management took actions that, in the investigators’ view, hindered the investigations, but there was no direct mention of Corrêa as being investigated.

Moraes also does not make any direct citation to the agency’s current director general in his decisions, limiting himself to reproducing, in some points, the PF’s statements.

The investigation focuses on the use of FirstMile spy software during the administration of Bolsonaro as the Presidency of the Republic and Alexandre Ramagem (now federal deputy) at Abin.

Corrêa took charge of the agency in May 2023 and is a former assistant to Lula, having been general director of the PF in the PT member’s first term. In a recent interview, the President of the Republic reaffirmed his confidence in the head of the intelligence agency.

“The partner I nominated to be general director of Abin is a partner who was my general director of the PF between 2007 and 2010, he is a person I have a lot of trust in.”

One of the documents to which the Sheet had access to is a report from the Police Counterintelligence Division dated November 3, 2023, 14 days after the launch of the first PF operation in the case, which included search and seizure at Abin’s headquarters in Brasília.

He specifically deals with Corrêa and his then number 2, Alessandro Moretti. In both cases, there is a “qualification of those investigated” with photos of both, the date of appointment of each one at Abin and personal information such as document numbers and respective cell phones.

The report is addressed to PF delegate Daniel Carvalho Brasil Nascimento, responsible for the investigation.

Moretti ended up being dismissed from his position after the second PF operation, in January. The police claim that he said, in a meeting with Abin employees, that there would be a political background to the investigations and that everything would pass.

The second document, from the PF’s Cyber ​​Intelligence Operations Division, is dated January 11th and deals with Corrêa’s testimony at the Joint Committee for the Control of Congressional Intelligence Activities, which took place on October 25th of last year.

“The presentation made by Luiz Fernando Corrêa at the meeting was identified”, says the PF document, which then reproduces the slides that the head of Abin showed at the meeting with congressmen, which was confidential.

The report, which is also addressed to the delegate responsible for the investigation, lists a note released by Intelis (Union of State Intelligence Professionals of Abin) in which it criticizes the general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues.

In addition to saying it repudiates statements by the head of the PF in the sense of an institutionalized action of illegal arapongagem of Abin in the Bolsonaro administration, the association states that bad professionals exist in any corporation, including the PF, and that “the deviation of a few cannot be attributed to all servers”.

The association also says that it is necessary to separate what it classifies as correct use of the FirstMile software, which was contracted with the approval of the Federal Attorney General’s Office, from possible misuse.

Abin has been the focus of the PF’s investigation since March last year, when information came to light that the Bolsonaro administration used FirstMile to illegally investigate political opponents through the geographic location of cell phones.

The investigation has already resulted in two operations with arrests and searches and seizures, one in October and the most recent in January.

The third document in the investigation, which focuses on Corrêa, deals with the analysis of material seized in the first search operation, in October 2023, including a notebook and a WhatsApp group that show meetings and dialogues between him and other members of the agency.

A notebook seized from a then Abin director records Corrêa’s meetings from the end of March to the first half of May 2023, and concludes: “It appears that Luiz Fernando Corrêa participated in Abin board meetings before being appointed to the position of general director.

Lula formally nominated Corrêa for the position on March 2, 2023, through the publication of a presidential message in the Official Gazette of the Union. The hearing and approval of the name by the Senate, however, only took place in May. The appointment decree was published by the government on May 29.

The fourth document is an analysis of material seized in the October operation, in this case a cell phone belonging to Paulo Maurício Fortunato, then number 3 at the agency.

It lists WhatsApp group messages from members of Abin’s new management, since January 2023, a time when the political decision to choose Corrêa had already been taken.

In one of the messages, for example, dated February 8, Corrêa tells the rest of the group that Lula would probably not formalize the nomination that day. “We will respect their time. In the meantime, we will advance the preparation of actions to start management. The price of this will, of course, be the continuity of appointments. We will have to bear the strain of undoing those that are not aligned with our model .”

As in the previous document, the conclusion passed on to the delegate responsible for the investigation is that Corrêa participated in Abin board meetings before being appointed.

When contacted, Corrêa and the PF stated that they do not comment on ongoing investigations.

Abin stated that it “continues to contribute to the investigations”. A Sheet he was unable to speak to Moretti.