Brazil probes whether Flávio Bolsonaro fled via Argentina
Federal police are checking whether the defeated senator crossed into Argentina after missing a passport deadline, as allies say he is bound for the US.
Brasília — Brazilian federal police are investigating whether Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right senator defeated by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday's presidential run-off, slipped out of the country through Argentina after failing to surrender his passports. The 45-year-old missed a Tuesday-morning deadline to hand the documents to police, part of a money-laundering probe in which he denies wrongdoing.
The Argentine news website Infobae reported that Bolsonaro crossed on Monday night and was expected to board a private jet at Puerto Iguazú bound for the United States, but that the plane never took off; Todo Noticias reported he crossed on foot and abandoned the plan once word leaked, according to The Guardian. With no record of him passing any regular Brazilian checkpoint, police are asking Buenos Aires whether he entered their territory. Argentine authorities told BBC News they have no record of any entry. His own lawyers said they were "completely in the dark" about his whereabouts.
Allies told the Folha de S Paulo newspaper and the website Metrópoles that Bolsonaro was bound for Florida, planned to request political asylum and that "the Donald Trump administration has been informed". A US state department spokesperson said Bolsonaro and his family would be granted visas "to allow them entry into the United States". Three sources likewise told the South China Morning Post on Tuesday that he had left for the US.
Lula, sworn to a fourth term after winning 51.79% of the vote to Bolsonaro's 48.21%, called the apparent flight "shameful". Lawmakers from his Workers' party asked the supreme court to order Bolsonaro's arrest and requested his name be added to Interpol's Red Notice list. The senator, who has not conceded and has called for the result to be annulled, posted a video on Monday saying: "I never thought about leaving the country."
The stakes extend beyond politics. The probe that triggered the passport cancellation covers an alleged money-laundering scheme worth about £680m ($905m) involving betting companies, and the supreme court has separately ordered police to examine alleged foreign funding of his campaign. Bolsonaro, who has held Italian citizenship since 2023, was ordered to surrender his passports hours after losing the election he had been widely expected to win.
What happens next hinges on two tests: whether Argentine or Brazilian authorities can establish any record of his movement, and whether the supreme court acts on the arrest request. His father Jair Bolsonaro remains under house arrest for attempting a coup, and his brother Eduardo faces an outstanding arrest warrant, leaving Brazil's far right without an obvious leader heading into the new congress.
Sources
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