Flávio Bolsonaro Flees to Miami After Brazil Election Loss, Defying Court Order - Time Magazine
Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro arrived in Miami on Wednesday after fleeing the country in defiance of a court order to surrender his passports amid a money laundering investigation, days after losing the presidential election to incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro traveled from northern Argentina to the Ecuadorian city of Guayaquil, the Argentine government said. From there, Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters flew to Miami, where they were recorded exiting a private jet at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport.
President Donald Trump told reporters he “would approve” of Bolsonaro coming to the U.S. “I think they’re fine people,” Trump said. “The election was very strange, and I thought it was terrible. It’s gotten bad reviews. You look at what happened to their market.”
On Tuesday, U.S. officials told multiple media outlets that the State Department would grant Bolsonaro and his family entry visas amid reports he had left Brazil to head to the U.S.
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice had ordered federal police to open a separate probe into possible illegal foreign financing of Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, including alleged ties to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s donor network. Lula’s government had previously accused the Trump Administration of interfering in Brazil’s election, an allegation the U.S. denies. TIME has reached out to Vance’s office for comment.
Bolsonaro initially said he would comply with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s order to surrender his passports and refrain from traveling. The order concerned an investigation into Bolsonaro’s alleged links to a Brazilian lawyer accused of laundering more than $1 billion through a fraud scheme.
The confidential order cited Bolsonaro’s flight risk and “significant financial resources.” The son of convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro, Flávio Bolsonaro will lose certain parliamentary protections from prosecution when his term as senator for Rio de Janeiro ends on Jan. 31.
“I have never thought about leaving the country,” Bolsonaro said in a social media video Monday. “I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this travesty, which is a clear attempt to intimidate me.”
But Bolsonaro did not comply with the order to hand over his passport by the end of the court’s 24-hour deadline on Tuesday morning. Argentina’s National Directorate of Migrations said Bolsonaro and his family entered the country “with valid travel documentation and without any legal impediment” on Tuesday night before boarding a private flight to Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Lula called Bolsonaro’s flight from Brazil “a shameful act.”
“Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear,” Lula added, recalling his own arrest in 2018 on charges of passive corruption and money laundering. His convictions that were later overturned.
Bolsonaro is also being investigated over alleged links to a banker connected to a corruption scheme. He is alleged to have raised millions of dollars from the banker to fund a biopic about his father.
Bolsonaro's departure could inflame political tensions amid claims from Brazil’s right wing and abroad that the election was unfair. Bolsonaro initially said he would seek to annul the vote, although his Liberal Party later conceded defeat. In the video posted Monday, he said he would seek to have Lula’s ticket disqualified, citing alleged disinformation and “vote buying.” He also said he would organize congressional opposition to Lula’s government.
“I wasn’t the one who lost,” he said. “The system won.”
Trump, an ally of the Bolsonaros, said Monday that the election appeared “rigged.” He did not provide evidence for the claim.
“I didn’t take sides, but it looked like another rigged election,” Trump said.
“I just think it had a very bad look, the election, the way it was tabulated,” he added. “The extension given was very strange.”
Brazil’s Supreme Court had granted a two-hour voting extension on Sunday, citing transport issues raised by Lula’s campaign. Bolsonaro’s campaign had separately requested a two-hour extension due to heavy rainfall in certain areas.
Lula won the election by more than 4 million votes. Roughly 0.03% of all votes—or fewer than 35,000—were recorded in the extra two hours. Vice President Geraldo Alckmin told Rede Vanguarda that Trump’s claims were “completely wrong.”
The inquiry into Bolsonaro stems from a federal probe into unauthorized deductions from pension payments made by Brazil’s social security agency. The broader operation, launched in April 2025, investigated associations suspected of collecting unauthorized membership fees from pension benefits.
Evidence from the probe led investigators to examine suspected money laundering involving betting platforms and financial transactions linked to Brazilian lawyer Willer Tomaz, who denies wrongdoing.
Police reportedly discovered that Bolsonaro had “master user” access to bank accounts belonging to Alcazar Holdings, a company owned by Tomaz. In May 2025, a person working for Tomaz asked the bank to remove Bolsonaro’s access to the accounts, local media outlets BPMoney and Times Brasil reported earlier this month, citing police findings. Both Bolsonaro and Tomaz deny having a joint account or financial ties.
De Moraes’s order also barred Bolsonaro from contacting Tomaz. Bolsonaro said on Monday that the ruling came after his brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, had said on a podcast last week that he should leave the country if he lost the election.
AFP reported that Bolsonaro’s Brazilian and diplomatic passports were canceled, but that he has held Italian nationality since 2023. His departure appeared to surprise his political allies, including his campaign manager Rogerio Marinho who told reporters Tuesday that he had no information about Bolsonaro’s whereabouts.
“I received a text message from him this morning, where he said he would let some time pass today and then would talk with us, and that was it,” he said. “That was the only communication we had.”
Bolsonaro has repeatedly criticized Brazil’s judiciary and described the investigations into him as politically motivated. The country’s Supreme Court generally assigns cases through a lottery system. The money laundering investigation was assigned to de Moraes on Oct. 16.
De Moraes was the lead justice in last year’s trial of Jair Bolsonaro, who refused to accept his election loss in 2022. A five-member panel of Supreme Court justices convicted Jair Bolsonaro, by a 4-1 vote, of attempting to overturn his election defeat and sentenced him to 27 years and three months in prison. He is serving the sentence under house arrest due to poor health. Prosecutors alleged that the plot included plans to assassinate Lula. Jair Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing.
In June, a Supreme Court panel unanimously convicted Eduardo Bolsonaro of coercion in judicial proceedings. Prosecutors alleged he had attempted to lobby the Trump Administration to use tariffs and sanctions, including on de Moraes, to pressure judicial authorities to drop the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro was sentenced to four years and two months in prison, but remains in Texas, where has lived since 2025.
De Moraes has also faced scrutiny over reported ties to Daniel Vorcaro, the former owner of Banco Master, whose financing of a film about Jair Bolsonaro is the subject of the separate inquiry into Flávio Bolsonaro. The New York Times reported, citing a police dossier, that Vorcaro sent text messages to de Moraes asking for help to avoid arrest. In messages to other associates, Vorcaro reportedly mentioned paying millions to the law firm of de Moraes’s wife. De Moraes has denied wrongdoing and said he never acted to favor Vorcaro or Banco Master.
De Moraes also clashed with tech billionaire Elon Musk in 2024 over court orders to block accounts on Musk’s social media platform X. De Moraes temporarily suspended the platform in Brazil after it failed to comply with judicial requirements, which Musk had described as “the most draconian demands of any country on Earth.”
