Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro has left the country for the United States after losing the presidential election on Sunday. Folha de S.Paulo and Reuters reported this, citing sources close to the senator. His departure comes amid multiple investigations, while the Supreme Court had ordered Flavio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, to surrender his passports to prevent him from leaving the country.
Reports about his compliance with this order were contradictory. While some sources suggested he had refused, the news agency AFP quoted a police official as saying Bolsonaro’s passports had been cancelled and there was no official record of his departure from Brazil. The Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that Bolsonaro’s plane was scheduled to land in Miami or Dallas. Speculation about his whereabouts intensified on social media, while an Argentine media outlet reported that he had crossed into Argentina to catch a flight to the US, but this was denied by Argentina’s Ministry of Security.
Bolsonaro lost the presidential runoff in Brazil on Sunday to incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Initially, he had said he would seek to annul the results due to alleged irregularities, but Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party accepted the results on Tuesday. In an Instagram video on Monday, Bolsonaro confirmed that he had been served with an order to surrender his passports. He said he planned to hand them over, but later reports showed the deadline had passed, leading to their cancellation.
The senator is accused of money laundering through a sports betting company, with funds allegedly diverted from government pensions for the elderly. A second investigation examines Bolsonaro’s links to a discredited banker, from whom he is alleged to have received millions of dollars to finance a biographical film about his father, titled “Dark Horse”. Bolsonaro will lose immunity from prosecution once his Senate term ends in February 2027. He has denied any wrongdoing in both cases. The Supreme Court order, issued by Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the same judge who sentenced his father, was served to Flavio outside his father’s house. His brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, had suggested in a podcast that he should leave the country if he lost the election.