By Brazilian police are investigating several top allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the 2022 election and searched their homes and offices Thursday.
Bolsonaro was not himself the target of a search but was ordered to forfeit his passport, an officer with knowledge of the operation told The Associated Press. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to publicly comment on the case.
The searches targeted among others Bolsonaro’s 2022 running mate Gen. Walter Braga Netto, former adviser Gen. Augusto Heleno, former Justice Minister Anderson Torres and the head of his political party, Valdemar Costa Neto, the officer said.
A police statement did not confirm the identities of those targeted in the searches but said they were carrying out 33 searches and seeking four arrests in eight states and the Federal District of Brasilia, the country’s capital. The probe was connected to an alleged criminal organization that “acted to attempt a coup d’etat” that would have kept Bolsonaro in power after his election defeat, the statement said.
The statement said the group under investigation prepared to claim fraud in the 2022 election, even before voting took place, “in order to enable and legitimize a military intervention.”
Bolsonaro repeatedly sowed doubt about the reliability of Brazil’s voting system and never conceded defeat after the election. He and his political party filed a request to annul ballots cast on most electronic voting machines, which would have overturned results.
The bid was rejected and the head of Brazil’s electoral authority, Alexandre de Moraes, wrote in his decision that the challenge appeared aimed at incentivizing anti-democratic protest movements and creating tumult.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who defeated Bolsonaro in the race that was the closest finish in Brazil’s modern history — told a radio station in Minas Gerais on Thursday that it wasn’t his place to comment about a sealed investigation.
But he added that the Jan. 8 uprising in Brazil’s capital by Bolsonaro’s supporters that sought to oust him would not have occurred without the former president’s involvement.
“A lot of people should be investigated, because it is concrete fact that there was an attempted coup, there was a policy of disrespecting democracy, there was an attempt to destroy something we built so many years ago, which is the democratic process,” Lula said.
Thursday’s operation comes just over a week after federal police targeted Bolsonaro’s son Carlos, a Rio de Janeiro city councilman, as well as former chief of Brazil’s intelligence agency under Bolsonaro, Alexandre Ramagem.
Those operations were part of a broader investigation into the nation’s intelligence agency and alleged spying on political opponents during Bolsonaro’s term, which ended in December 2022.
Bolsonaro was with his son at the time of the raid last week, but wasn’t forced to forfeit his phone or any other belongings.
Previously issued police statements and Supreme Court documents made public, show police are investigating an “organized crime” group that operated within the intelligence agency during Bolsonaro’s term that allegedly used the agency’s tools and services for political use and personal gain.
De Moraes, who is also a Supreme Court judge, said in a decision made public on Jan. 29 that police claim they identified a group that allegedly included Carlos Bolsonaro, which “monitored ‘political enemies’.”
The group is also suspected of seeking to interfere with ongoing police investigations, some of which targeted or involved two other sons of Bolsonaro, Jair Renan and Flávio Bolsonaro, a sitting senator.
