In May 2021, Brazilian news portal UOL reported that the Ministry of Justice of Brazil had allegedly made an offer to acquire Pegasus for R$25.4 million ($4.8 million) (the Ministry of Justice confirmed the existence of a bidding process for the “acquisition of a tool for searching and consulting data in open sources” but denied it was for Pegasus). According to UOL, Jair Bolsonaro’s son Carlos Bolsonaro, councilor of Rio de Janeiro at that time, was involved in the process and intended to expand a “parallel” Brazilian Intelligence Agency within the Ministry of Justice and the Federal Police. Also according to UOL, NSO Group abandoned the offer of Brazil’s Ministry of Justice following the UOL revelations. To our knowledge, UOL was the only media that had access to direct sources for these pieces of information.