<\/p>\n
Former Brazilian intelligence chief Alexandre Ramagem Rodrigues<\/p>\n
Brazil Chamber of Deputies<\/p>\n
Last December, Brazil\u2019s former spy chief was spotted entering a luxury residence in on Laguna Circle in North Miami\u2019s posh SoL\u00e9 Mia development.<\/p>\n
Alexandre Ramagem Rodrigues, 53, had fled to Miami some three months earlier to escape trial in Brazil, where the Supreme Court sentenced him on Sept. 11 to 16 years in prison for participating in a 2023 coup attempt.<\/p>\n
Ramagem, who served as the Brazilian Intelligence Agency chief between 2019-22, was identified by Brazilian authorities as a member of the \u201ccrucial core\u201d of the 2023 plot designed to keep Jair Bolsonaro in power. He has also been sentenced for using intelligence tools to illegally monitor opponents of the former Brazilian leader, ranging from politicians to artists and journalists.<\/p>\n
Despite the Brazilian diplomatic passport he used to enter the U.S. being canceled in December, Ramagem remains in exile in Florida as authorities in Brasilia seek his extradition.<\/p>\n
But it remains unclear if the Trump administration \u2014 which has defended Bolsonaro\u2019s innocence and imposed sanctions on Alexander Moraes, the Supreme Court judge prosecuting Ramagem \u2014 will comply with the request.<\/p>\n
Escape to Miami<\/p>\n
Ramagem was first spotted in Miami in December by a Brazilian reporter who saw him and his wife entering Sol\u00e9 Mia, the massive 184-acre master-planned mini-city in North Miami.<\/p>\n
According to the the Brazilian Federal Police, the former intelligence director is suspected to have left the country illegally in September 2025 with help from a local miner\u2019s son in the northern area of Roraima, a Brazilian state that borders Guyana. The miner\u2019s son ended up being arrested, and his cell phone and other materials were seized, according to police.<\/p>\n
After a 13-hour car trip through Guyana, he boarded a plane to Miami in Georgetown, Guyana\u2019s capital. He was able to clear U.S. immigration with his diplomatic passport, which hadn\u2019t been canceled at the time.<\/p>\n
He stayed for about three months at Sol\u00e9 Mia, but after the news article in Brazil exposed his lavish Miami residence, Ramagem quietly moved with his wife and two young daughters to a housing complex in Orlando. On Sundays, he and his family often attend mass at Attitude Baptist Church of Orlando, which holds services in Portuguese.<\/p>\n
Ramagem did not respond to Herald efforts seeking comment.<\/p>\n
Three questions<\/p>\n
While Ramagem and his family build their new life in Florida, nearly 4,000 miles away Brazilian justice officials are seeking his extradition through a request formally ordered by a Supreme Court Justice in Bras\u00edlia on Dec. 15.<\/p>\n
Brazil\u2019s Department of Asset Recovery and International Legal Cooperation confirmed that the request for Ramagem\u2019s return has been forwarded to the U.S. Department of Justice under the two countries\u2019 extradition treaty.<\/p>\n
Adam Hickey, a former deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, told the Miami Herald that that for an extradition request to move forward, three questions must be answered: whether the crime charged would also be a considered crime in the U.S, if it is a political offense and if there is a possible human-rights defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re seeking extradition, there has to be something called dual criminality, meaning the crime that the requesting state, in this case Brazil, wants to extradite you on has to also be a crime in the United States\u201d, Hickey said.<\/p>\n
Hickey, who dealt with extradition requests from the U.S., said the process can move quickly. It would first be evaluated by career line-level Justice employees, but the ultimate decision will go to senior political officials in the department.<\/p>\n
Further provisions allow the CIA and other intelligence agencies to facilitate immigration status in the U.S. for sources that are providing classified information, and most extradition treaties have an exception for political offenses; that clause traditionally applies to things such as espionage charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a very good shot that in the context of this administration and given things that the president has said about [Bolsonaro]… our government might view those charges as political offenses,\u201d Hickey said.<\/p>\n
Bolsonaro in prison<\/p>\n
Brazilian attorney Marco Aur\u00e9lio de Carvalho, who is currently in charge of the defense of Peru\u2019s former first lady Nadine Her\u00e9dia, who received diplomatic asylum from Brazil after a money laundering conviction in Peru, believes that the request might be accepted due to the international agreements Brazil has with the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cRamagem committed crimes against democracy, against institutions, against the rule of law, and is fleeing Brazilian jurisdiction\u201d, de Carvalho said. \u201cThis is absolutely indisputable and unquestionable from every perspective. Brazil and the United States are signatories to international agreements, the circumstances of which have been clearly defined and are in place to ensure that extradition proceeds with absolute speed.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Brazilian government continues to press the extradition process through its Washington embassy, Ramagem remains the only member of the 2023 coup plot to have successfully escaped the country. Former president Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence in a Brazilian prison.<\/p>\n
The Herald attempted to contact Alexandre Ramagem Rodrigues but received no response as of the publication of this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Brazilian intelligence chief Alexandre Ramagem Rodrigues Brazil Chamber of Deputies Last December, Brazil\u2019s former spy chief was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77216,77217,77218,123,125,124,32595],"class_list":["post-161254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-alexandre-ramagem-rodrigues","tag-extradition-request","tag-florida-exile","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-sole-mia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}