ABIN

The Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (ABIN) is the central body of the Brazilian Intelligence System (Sistema Brasileiro de Inteligência, SISBIN). Both were created by Law 9.883 of December 7, 1999, signed by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and countersigned by Alberto Mendes Cardoso, and published in the official gazette the following day.¹

Law 9.883

The law defines intelligence as "the activity that aims at the obtaining, analysis and dissemination of knowledge within and outside the national territory" on facts and situations bearing on government decision-making and "the safeguarding and security of society and the State," and counterintelligence as "the activity that aims to neutralize adverse intelligence." Article 3 created ABIN as a body directly advising the President of the Republic which, "in the position of central body of the Brazilian Intelligence System, shall be responsible for planning, executing, coordinating, supervising and controlling the intelligence activities of the country"; a 2001 provisional measure, 2.216-37, redefined it as a body of the Presidency. Its intelligence activities are to be carried out, "as regards the limits of their extent and the use of secret techniques and means," with "unrestricted observance of individual rights and guarantees."¹

Under Article 4 ABIN is to "plan and execute actions, including secret ones," to obtain and analyze data for the President, to protect sensitive knowledge relating to the security of the state and society, and to "evaluate the threats, internal and external, to the constitutional order." The National Intelligence Policy set by the President is executed by ABIN "under the supervision of the Chamber of Foreign Relations and National Defense of the Council of Government." External control belongs to the legislature, through a body made up of the majority and minority leaders of the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate and the chairs of the foreign relations and national defense committees of both houses.¹

The agency is run by a director-general chosen and appointed by the President after approval by the Senate. Acts of ABIN whose publicity could compromise its secret activities are published only in extract, and a 2001 amendment provided that intelligence documents in its custody may be supplied to authorities only by the chief of the Gabinete de Segurança Institucional of the Presidency. The law absorbed into ABIN the technical intelligence unit then attached to the Casa Militar of the Presidency, with its posts, property and budget balances, and required the annual federal budget to carry, under a specific heading, the resources for "actions of a secret character."¹

Terrorgram Reporting

In 2023 Michele Prado, founder of the non-governmental organization Stop Hate Brasil, submitted a report to ABIN and the Ministry of Justice and Public Security identifying Telegram channels linked to members of the Terrorgram Collective operating in Brazil, including channels linked to Ciro Daniel Amorim Ferreira and to the pseudonym "Wolf Boy Winter."²

Abin Paralela

On June 17, 2025, the Polícia Federal concluded its inquiry into an alleged espionage scheme set up inside ABIN during the government of Jair Bolsonaro, known as the "Abin paralela," and sent it to the Supreme Federal Tribunal with a list of 36 people indicted. They included the city councilman Carlos Bolsonaro and the federal deputy Alexandre Ramagem, who had been ABIN's director-general at the time, as well as the agency's sitting leadership under its director-general, Luiz Fernando Corrêa. The principal subject of the investigation was the use of ABIN to monitor public authorities illegally. According to the Federal Police, federal police officers and delegados seconded to ABIN, together with agency employees, took part in a criminal organization to carry out illegal espionage, and investigators found an operation to obtain confidential information on Paraguayan officials involved in negotiating the energy contract of the Itaipu hydroelectric plant.³

Ramagem did not comment on the indictment and had previously denied the scheme existed; Carlos Bolsonaro said the operation was politically motivated with an eye to the 2026 elections; ABIN declined to comment. Jair Bolsonaro was not indicted in this inquiry, because the Federal Police held that, having already been indicted for criminal organization in the case over the attempted coup, he could not be indicted again.³