BRAZIL’S intelligence agency has been accused of spying on members of the judiciary, legislators and journalists while far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro held power, following a federal police probe.

Among those targeted were Chamber of Deputies Speaker Arthur Lira, Supreme Justice Alexandre de Moraes, former Sao Paulo governor Joao Doria and members of environmental agency Ibama, according to a Supreme Court document made public on Thursday.

Also snooped on were three senators who led a parliamentary inquiry into Mr Bolsonaro’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, plus well-known journalists Monica Bergamo of the Folha de S Paulo newspaper and Vera Magalhaes of the O Globo daily.

Police implemented five preventive arrest warrants on Thursday to dismantle a “criminal organisation” that allegedly monitored public authorities illegally and produced fake news using systems from Brazil’s intelligence agency, known by its Portuguese acronym ABIN.

The group essentially ran a “parallel structure,” the court document said. 

According to police: “The criminal organisation also illegally accessed computers, telephone devices and telecommunications infrastructure to monitor people and public officials.”

Arrest warrants were issued for former Secretariat of Social Communication member Mateus de Carvalho Sposito, businessman Richards Dyer Pozzer, influencer Rogerio Beraldo de Almeida, federal police officer Marcelo Araujo Bormevet and military officer Giancarlo Gomes Rodrigues.

Mr Bolsonaro’s name appears five times in the Supreme Court’s decision authorising the arrest warrants carried out on Thursday and also mentions that one of the suspects said that he had a “direct line” to the former president.

A lawyer for Mr Bolsonaro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The former president is not formally accused of ordering any espionage, but the police investigation found “that ABIN had been instrumentalised, with a clear institutional deviation from clandestine actions, to monitor people related to investigations involving family members” of Mr Bolsonaro, the court document said.