PF associates dollars in suspect’s home with Abin funds – 03/08/2024 – Power

The Federal Police’s investigation into the “parallel Abin” case associates the US$172,000 in cash found in the house of the then number 3 of the agency to an alleged and atypical directing of the institution’s confidential funds to the office of the former director general of the intelligence agency and today federal deputy Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ).

In the first search and seizure carried out as part of the investigation, in October, the PF found the money in the house of the then secretary of management planning at Abin (Brazilian Intelligence Agency), Paulo Maurício Fortunato.

PF report that is confidential, and to which the Sheet had access, indicates the hypothesis of diversion of confidential funds used in intelligence operations to explain the origin of the money.

The report, which is dated the end of November, that is, more than a month after the seizure of the money, states that until that moment there was no reference to the origin of the dollars, which could represent “another set of crimes” in addition to the one investigated — the use of FirstMile spy software to illegally snoop on political opponents.

In addition to the absence of a defined origin, the PF takes two more points as a basis for making this association.

The first was that the US$50 and US$100 bills had the same state of conservation and were divided into blocks of different series, which, according to the researchers, would be difficult to obtain by a common person, but possible for institutions.

The second is the testimony of former Abin employee Rodrigo Colli, who is one of the key figures in the FirstMile case.

He and a colleague suffered internal administrative proceedings for allegedly participating in an Army tender using oranges. Because of this, they would have threatened to report irregularities in the use of FirstMile if they were punished (the two were arrested and ended up being fired by the Lula government on the day of the PF operation, in October).

Colli stated, according to the transcript made by the PF, that in 2021, confidential funds were directed to Ramagem’s office, which would have caused internal surprise as the agency’s general management does not participate in intelligence operations.

He also said that the secret funds were used through cards and the amounts were withdrawn in cash.

Finally, he stated that he had heard at the agency that Fortunato’s departure from the role he held at Abin at the time — he held senior positions at the agency during the previous administration — was “due to disagreement with Ramagem over the use of confidential funds “.

In an exchange of messages that the PF also had access to, Fortunato says that most of the confidential funds allocated to Ramagem’s office were used on international trips by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

When questioned, Ramagem did not respond to questions sent to his office.

In an interview with GloboNews on the day of the operation, the deputy, who is a pre-candidate for Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, denied any use or relationship with Abin’s spying software and said he did not have access to information about the investigations.

At the time, Ramagem stated that there is a “salad of narratives […] without evidence” and who never used, had access to or even had FirstMile passwords. “We never had the use, execution, management or password of these systems.”

Fortunato did not want to comment. On the day of the operation, the PF tried to take his statement, but he chose at that moment to have the right to remain silent.

Removed from his position by order of Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF (Supreme Federal Court), the then director of Abin was dismissed by the government days after the October operation.

The PF report from the end of November served as the basis for Moraes to authorize the second search and seizure operation in the case, this time targeting Ramagem’s addresses, among others.

The PF requested in the report the removal of the former head of Abin from his position as federal deputy.

Moraes, however, said in his decision that until that moment he did not see the need to adopt the measure, reproducing the position of the PGR (Attorney General’s Office) in the same sense, but that this could be re-analyzed if Ramagem returned to using his parliamentary prerogative. to try to interfere in the investigations.

The former head of Abin even attended the closed hearing of the Joint Committee for the Control of Intelligence Activities of Congress, which heard in October the current director of the agency, Luiz Fernando Corrêa, precisely about investigations into the use of the software during the Ramagem administration.

Moraes also referred to the requests for information made by Ramagem about the investigations of which he was the target and said that any responses given by bodies such as the CGU (Comptroller General of the Union), PGR and Abin should be submitted to him, “in view of the secrecy of investigations”.

Abin has been the focus of the PF investigation since March last year, under suspicion that, during the Bolsonaro administration, it was used to illegally snoop on opponents of the then president. This would have occurred through FirstMile, software capable of giving a person’s approximate location through cell phone waves.

Moraes authorized arrest, search and seizure operations carried out last October and in January this year.

In addition to Ramagem, councilor Carlos Bolsonaro (Republicans), son of the former President of the Republic, was also the target of a search operation on January 29th.

In the action relating to Carlos, the PF targeted people who were allegedly recipients of information produced illegally by the government intelligence agency.

Understand the investigations of a ‘parallel Abin’

Use illegal agency
The Federal Police investigates the existence of a parallel structure at Abin to track political opponents of Jair Bolsonaro (PL);

FirstMile
It is monitoring software used by Abin between 2019 and 2021; it accessed geolocation data of those being tracked, and could not intercept calls;

Targets
Some of those investigated are Alexandre Ramagem (PL-RJ), former general director of the agency, and councilor Carlos Bolsonaro (Republicanos-RJ)