In a significant development in Brazil’s high-profile anti-coup investigation, Alexandre Ramagem — the former head of Brazil’s national intelligence agency Abin and a close ally of incarcerated ex-President Jair Bolsonaro — has been taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Orlando, Florida. The detention marks a major milestone in cross-border law enforcement cooperation after Ramagem spent months as a fugitive following his conviction on coup plotting charges.
Ramagem was among eight people, including Bolsonaro himself, found guilty in a Brazilian Supreme Court trial of orchestrating a plan to stage a military coup to overturn the results of the 2022 Brazilian presidential election, which Bolsonaro lost to current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Handed a 16-year prison sentence, Ramagem never appeared to hear the guilty verdict: he fled Brazil by car to neighboring Guyana shortly before the ruling was issued, then flew to the United States to evade custody.
ICE confirmed Monday that Ramagem is currently in their custody, but has declined to share additional details on the circumstances of his arrest. Brazilian federal police confirmed only that a Brazilian national convicted of coup conspiracy by the Supreme Court had been detained in Orlando, crediting the arrest to coordinated international police collaboration between Brazilian federal authorities and U.S. law enforcement. Multiple regional law enforcement sources familiar with the case tell BBC News Brasil that Brazilian officials expect Ramagem will be deported back to Brazil following a hearing before an American immigration judge.
Ramagem’s legal team has already signaled it will fight extradition, arguing that the conviction against him is politically motivated. Legal analysts expect his attorneys will formally apply for political asylum in the U.S. if that application has not already been submitted.
Beyond his coup conviction, Ramagem, who led Abin from 2019 to 2022 during Bolsonaro’s presidency, is also facing separate investigation for allegedly misusing his intelligence agency post to conduct illegal surveillance on political opponents of the former president — allegations Ramagem has repeatedly denied.
After Ramagem fled Brazil, Brazilian judicial authorities officially labeled him a fugitive and formally requested his extradition from the U.S. through diplomatic channels back in December 2025. In a pre-detention interview with a pro-Bolsonaro journalist, Ramagem defended his decision to flee, claiming he would have been wrongfully imprisoned in Brazil and that he felt secure on U.S. soil. He also claimed he had been welcomed by U.S. authorities upon arrival, saying, ‘What I can tell you is that the American authorities received me very well, and that’s exactly what they said: “It’s very good to have a friend safe here with us.”‘
The case has already drawn cross-border political attention, with former U.S. President Donald Trump dismissing the entire investigation that led to the convictions of Bolsonaro, Ramagem and their co-conspirators as a politically motivated ‘witch hunt’. When Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in the plot, Trump called the sentence ‘very surprising’. Shortly after the verdict was issued, the Trump administration imposed economic sanctions on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the investigation, but later reversed the sanctions, citing that the restrictions were ‘inconsistent with US foreign policy interests’.