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Former Brazilian Intelligence Chief Detained By ICE In Florida

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4 days 21 hours ago
Former Brazilian Intelligence Chief Detained By ICE In Florida

Authored by Charis Summers via The Epoch Times,

Alexandre Ramagem, a former chief of the Brazilian intelligence agency and a close ally of former President Jair Bolsonaro, has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Orlando, Florida.

Ramagem was chief of the ABIN intelligence agency from 2019 until 2022, when he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, representing Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party.

In September 2025, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in an attempted coup in 2023 by Bolsonaro supporters. His congressional seat was later declared vacant. Brazilian authorities said Ramagem fled the South American nation before he would have started serving his sentence.

Brazil’s federal police said in an April 13 statement that a “fugitive of the country’s justice was arrested” in Orlando, but did not mention Ramagem by name. Police said the unnamed fugitive was recently sentenced by the country’s top court for the same three counts as Ramagem’s conviction.

“The arrest stemmed from international police cooperation between the Federal Police and U.S. law enforcement authorities,” Brazilian authorities said. “The prisoner is considered a fugitive from Brazilian justice after conviction for the crimes of armed criminal organization, coup d’état and attempted violent abolition of the rule of law.”

The Epoch Times reached out to ICE and Immigrex, a visa consultation service and law firm representing Ramagem, for comment, but did not receive a response by publication time.

Bolsonaro was convicted and sentenced to 27 years in jail in September 2025.

‘Traffic Infraction’

Ramagem appeared as “in custody” in ICE’s online detainee database on April 13. The Epoch Times was unable to verify the reason for Ramagem’s arrest, or whether it was related to Brazil’s request to extradite him.

In an April 13 post on X, Paulo Figueiredo, ​a Bolsonaro ally who lives in Florida, said Ramagem was ‌detained after a “minor traffic infraction” in Orlando, and then referred to ICE.

“Ramagem’s status is LEGAL: he has a pending asylum application, filed some time ago and still under review, which allows him to remain lawfully in the United States until a final decision is made in the case,” Figueiredo said.

Brazilian senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro in Grapevine, Texas, at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 28, 2026. The Epoch Times

Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio, who is also a Brazilian senator, said in an April 13 post on X that Ramagem “has a pending asylum application, is well supported legally, and there is an expectation that he will be released soon.”

Brazil is due to hold presidential elections in October 2026, with the winner taking office in January 2027.

The trials of Bolsonaro and Ramagem stemmed from the aftermath of the 2022 Brazilian presidential election, which included attacks on government buildings by Bolsonaro’s supporters.

Bolsonaro and his aides denied any involvement and said that they were the target of political persecution under the administration of his former competitor, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula.

During Bolsonaro’s trial, U.S. President Donald Trump referred to it as a “witch hunt” and said Bolsonaro was not guilty of anything, except having fought for the people.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (2nd L) greets supporters next to his wife Michelle Bolsonaro during a rally in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on Feb. 25, 2024. Nelson Almeida/AFP via Getty Images

Bolsonaro started his prison sentence in November but was released to house arrest last month after suffering a bout of pneumonia.

In an April 13 post on X, Jorge Seif Júnior, who sits in the Brazilian federal senate, said Ramagem’s detention is “another case of political persecution in Brazil.”

“Today I formally submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia Official Letter No. 013/2026, presenting the relevant arguments regarding the detention, by ICE, of Brazilian Federal Police officer and Congressman Alexandre Ramagem,” he wrote. “This is yet another case of political persecution in Brazil, as seen with Jair Bolsonaro and Eduardo Bolsonaro. In light of this, I advocate for the granting of political asylum. ”

Lula, on April 14, called ‌on Ramagem to return to Brazil to serve his sentence.

“I believe Ramagem will come back to Brazil, he ​has to come ​back to serve his sentence,” Lula ‌said ⁠in an interview with local media.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/15/2026 - 17:40
Tyler Durden

IMF Warns US Treasury Market Prone To "Sudden Repricing" Due To Soaring Debt, Overreliance On Bills

Zero Rss
4 days 21 hours ago
IMF Warns US Treasury Market Prone To "Sudden Repricing" Due To Soaring Debt, Overreliance On Bills

The International Monetary Fund warned Wednesday that the relentless US debt issuance is undermining the premium Treasuries have commanded from investors, with implications for government securities across the globe.

“The increase in the US Treasury security supply is compressing the safety premium that US Treasuries have traditionally commanded — an erosion that pushes up borrowing costs globally,” the Washington-based IMF said in its latest Fiscal Monitor report.

The US has been selling large volumes of debt because its budget deficit has averaged roughly 6% of gross domestic product over the past three years, an unprecedented shortfall outside of wartime or recession eras. The gap is expected to stay around those levels throughout the coming decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In reality, it will only get wider. 

As Bloomberg reports, the IMF pointed to a narrowing gap between the yields of AAA rated corporate bonds and Treasuries as a sign of reduced appeal for US government securities. While spreads have typically been viewed as a gauge of the risk investors estimate for corporate borrowers, the fund is flipping that analysis on its head to view it as a metric of how much extra buyers are willing to pay for Treasuries.

“A narrowing spread implies that the premium investors pay for the safety and liquidity of Treasuries (relative to high-grade corporate debt) is compressing,” the IMF said. The fund showed that AAA corporate spreads have shrunk to roughly 35 basis points from more than 55 basis points at the start of 2019.

Besides funding runaway US debt, another danger flagged by the IMF was the increasing reliance of the US Treasury on sales of short-dated debt, a process launched by Janet Yellen and her Activist Treasury Issuance, and maintained ever since. Having initially criticized the Bill buildout, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last year said that it didn’t make sense to expand issuance of longer-dated securities, given that their yield levels were above those of T-Bills, which mature in under a year.

“When debt is concentrated at shorter maturities, governments must refinance more frequently, increasing their exposure to abrupt shifts in market conditions or investor sentiment,” the fund said, noting that the US - along with all other "developed" governments - has shifted reliance toward sales of bills.

Wednesday’s warnings come three weeks before Bessent’s Treasury sets out its latest plan for US debt issuance, known as the quarterly refunding policy statement.

Finally, the IMF also flagged the increasing role that hedge funds are playing in the Treasuries market, via so-called cash-futures basis trades, as a risk.

“The liquidity that hedge funds supply through such trades can be prone to flight, as it is backed by more-leveraged investors: a spike in volatility or financing costs can trigger forced unwinding, amplifying price dislocations,” it said.

Multiple elements - historically high borrowing needs, the composition of demand for Treasuries tilting toward hedge funds and the increasing reliance on shorter-dated securities - are contributing to increased vulnerability of the market to a “sudden repricing,” according to the IMF. These dynamics can also become self-reinforcing, the fund said.

“If investors grow concerned about a country’s rollover capacity, they may demand higher yields or step back from auctions of sovereign bonds altogether, validating the initial concern,” the IMF said, effectively explaining what happens when a Ponzi scheme stops working.

“The resulting political pressure to address rising costs of servicing debt may itself become a source of uncertainty that markets price in.”

Meantime, the Iran war will stoke new fiscal pressures, forcing governments to choose between cushioning their economies from rising energy costs or keeping a lid on borrowing, the IMF also said.

“The Middle East has added a new source of fiscal pressure to an already strained global landscape,” it said. “In a scenario of prolonged conflict, global debt-at-risk could increase by an additional 4 percentage points,” the IMF said, using a term that refers to the danger of repayment difficulties in an adverse scenario.

As finance ministers and central bankers from around the world gather in the US capital this week for the spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, the fund chided most major economies on their fiscal policies, starting with the US which has “no debt consolidation plan in sight” - the IMF certainly is correct there - while China’s persistent large deficits are continuing to add to its borrowing load, which is also accurate, but fails to discuss China's relentless dumping of products which are collapsing its core export markets as their manufacturing sectors implode as they can't complete with Chinese state subsidies. Several European Union member nations have triggered escape clauses from the union’s rules on deficits in order to fund defense spending, the IMF noted.

But the US has a special role, given how reverberations in the Treasuries market spread across the world, the IMF said.

“The transmission is global: supply-driven increases in US yields spill over almost one-for-one to foreign bond markets, disproportionately affecting countries reliant on external financing,” the IMF said.

The full IMF Fiscal Monitor report can be found here.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/15/2026 - 17:20
Tyler Durden

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