Parallel Intelligence Agency, Bolsonaro, and the bizarre Operation Itapirareca: journalist targeted after denouncing death squad.

Journalist José Jesus Vicente is one of the people monitored by the parallel intelligence agency ABIN, and this case highlights the risk Brazil would face if Jair Bolsonaro were to advance his authoritarian project.

Vicente, who in addition to being a journalist, is an actor and known for his adventures, especially for walking long distances, which he posts about on his blog.

She currently works for the Porque portal in Sorocaba, where she also worked as a reporter for other publications.

The only major newspaper he worked for was Diário Popular, renamed Diário de S. Paulo when it was sold to Grupo Globo. He left the mainstream press more than ten years ago.

In the Federal Police report, he is mentioned twice. The first time is on page 213, with a map showing three of his movements, one in the neighborhood where he usually goes for walks, near his home.

“Itarareca” is the name of the operation that led to his being monitored. “I don’t understand why I was being monitored. I wasn’t doing any political reporting at that time,” he said.

The monitoring took place on September 2nd and 3rd, 2020, with five queries made through computer terminal 01.

The date coincides with Jair Bolsonaro's visit to the small town of Tapiraí, in the Ribeira Valley, a region in São Paulo state where the former president lived and where a large part of his family still resides.

Jesus Vicente was a public school teacher in the city, with whom he maintained ties, including through publishing a magazine that showcased tourist attractions.

Bolsonaro even mentioned Tapiraí in a live broadcast the day before, calling it Itapiraí, as many people usually say, hence, possibly, the name Itapirareca.

In the live broadcast, the then-chief executive said he called the Military Police detachment and asked to speak to a police officer. According to him, whoever answered thought it was a prank call and hung up.

In the social media broadcast, Bolsonaro asked that people announce that it was indeed him who had called, and the following day he landed by helicopter on the Tapiraí soccer field.

It was a surprise visit, for him to go to the detachment and greet a police officer, with whom he spoke privately.

Two months earlier, I edited a report by journalist José Jesus Vicente in the Diário do Centro do Mundo (DCM) about the disappearance of Afonso Domingo da Silva, 26 years old.

The young man was black, and the police's involvement in the likely execution was discovered because of a police car rollover in the city.

Jesus Vicente's report shed light on an alleged death squad in the region where the Bolsonaro family is now one of the most prosperous.

In his report, Jesus Vicente mentioned the disagreement the victim had had with the owner of a gas station in Tapiraí, from where the police officers left to raid the young black man's house.

“That’s the only thing that explains why I was monitored,” he stated. As the Federal Police report on the Abin investigation shows, Abin’s monitoring began the day before the surprise visit to Tapiraí – on the same day as the live broadcast, therefore.

Jesus Vicente published another report in Diário do Centro do Mundo, which I also edited, about four months later, regarding the allegation that the Votorantim Group was illegally seizing land in the region.

But this does not coincide with Bolsonaro's mobilizations. "Today, being mentioned in a report about the Parallel Intelligence Agency is a trophy, but what happened at the time, without my knowledge, is terrifying," he commented.

Knowing Jesus Vicente's whereabouts would allow ABIN (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) to deploy spies for on-site observation, as has happened in other cases, or, worse, provide addresses for a more serious operation.

"If they staged a robbery and killed me, who would associate the crime with the report I did about the military police?" he stated.

Bolsonaro always said that he played within the rules of the Constitution, which guarantees the right to privacy.

A clandestine action like this allows for terror by the State or people associated with it. Neither the coincidence of dates nor his declaration of appreciation for the Tapiraí Military Police serve as proof against Bolsonaro.

But it presents evidence. In the Federal Police report, Bolsonaro is cited as the main recipient of the proceeds from clandestine actions and the instrumentalization of ABIN (Brazilian Intelligence Agency).

On page 123, the Federal Police report an espionage operation of a purely political nature.

On June 10, 2021, in an Abin chat, the participant with phone number (032) 991463854 (Juiz de Fora region) reports that there was a meeting between Lula and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former minister Nelson Jobim and businessman Jonas Barcellos, at the latter's farm, called Mata Velha.

“Central issue: how to remove JB from the electoral race or fabricate facts to invalidate the election (bots, parallel office, sponsored posts, etc…). I received information from someone who was there during a lunch,” he writes. And he warns: “Request from Ch.”

The message is addressed to Marcelo Bormevet, the Federal Police agent who organized the security scheme on September 6, 2018, in Juiz de Fora, and who later, at the beginning of the government, had his name presented by Carlos Bolsonaro to Gustavo Bebianno for appointment at ABIN (Brazilian Intelligence Agency).

"Bormevet, find out everything about this farm and this businessman. That's the request. Try to find out everything about the businessman, the farm, and their connection to the names mentioned in the news," he instructs.

The request is classified as urgent (“UUU”).

Carlos Bolsonaro is a recurring name in the investigation in which he is indicted. But one detail has gone unnoticed.

This is stated in the testimony of Caio César dos Santos Cruz, son of General Santos Cruz, who accompanied Bolsonaro to Juiz de Fora on September 6, 2018.

Caio Santos Cruz was investigated for representing the Israeli company Verint System Ltd., which sold the First Mile software to Brazil, used to break the confidentiality of cell phones without judicial authorization.

The general's son joined Verint's representative company, Suntech/Cognyte, in 2016 and participated in international events where First Mile was presented.

That same year, after the coup against Dilma, Carlos, who was (and is) a city councilor in Rio de Janeiro, and his brother Eduardo went to Israel on a party delegation.

As Caio Santos Cruz stated in his testimony to the Federal Police, what caught his attention was the fact that the two requested a meeting with Israeli security agencies, with the knowledge of Cognyte, which reported it to its representative in Brazil.

"It caught the declarant's attention because it is unusual," the Federal Police noted in Caio Santos Cruz's statement.

In March 2019, according to Santos Cruz, it was Flávio Bolsonaro's turn, at the beginning of his term as senator, to travel to Israel and participate in the meeting where the applications of First Mile, already acquired by the Brazilian government, were demonstrated.

"It's not common for civilians to participate in this type of meeting," the general's son told the Federal Police. "No representatives from the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Defense were present at this meeting," he added.

What interest do Jair Bolsonaro's sons, one of whom is a city councilman, have in the intelligence equipment that, as is now known, was used on a large scale against legal orders and for monitoring for various reasons?

Israel's close relationship with Bolsonaro was evident from the beginning of his administration, when Benjamin Netanyahu used his inauguration as an opportunity to visit (or appear to visit) Brazil.

According to the report, the Federal Police investigation into ABIN, in addition to serving to hold criminals accountable, is a document for understanding this period in Brazilian history, in which no one was safe, and everyone could be a target of a dictatorship in the making.