Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right Brazilian senator who lost Sunday's presidential runoff to leftist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, left Brazil under cover of darkness this week after missing a court-ordered deadline to hand over his passport, according to Brazilian and Argentine officials.
Argentina's National Directorate of Migration confirmed that Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters crossed into the country on foot at the Tancredo Neves International Bridge in Misiones province late Tuesday, then boarded a private flight bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador. "They did so with valid travel documentation and without any legal impediment to entering the country," the agency said. A BBC report noted confusion over his ultimate destination, after a senior US official separately confirmed the State Department would issue entry visas to Bolsonaro and his family if requested.
A deadline, then a disappearance
The scramble began Monday, when a Brazilian Supreme Court justice cancelled Bolsonaro's passports as part of a criminal investigation into alleged money laundering tied to a Brazilian lawyer accused of funnelling more than $1bn through fraud schemes. Bolsonaro, who denies the allegations and has not been charged, was given 24 hours to surrender the documents to federal police. He missed the deadline, and his lawyers told the BBC they were "completely in the dark" about his whereabouts.
Bolsonaro had insisted as recently as Monday that he had no plans to leave Brazil, posting a video saying he intended to stay and lead the opposition to Lula. Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported that during a Monday meeting with friends and lawyers, he appeared "possessed" and said he feared arrest. He has Italian citizenship through his family's heritage and reportedly holds an Italian passport, separate from the Brazilian documents that were cancelled.
Lula calls the exit "shameful"
Lula condemned the apparent flight at a public event marking his 81st birthday in Brasília. "This is what the family Bolsonaro are like," he said. "I keep imagining what's on the conscience of a citizen who just lost the elections and flees his country ... He who owes nothing, fears nothing. A citizen who sneaks out of his country owes something. The act of leaving Brazil is shameful." Lawmakers from Lula's Workers' Party have asked Brazil's Supreme Court to order Bolsonaro's arrest and to place his name on Interpol's Red Notice list.
Bolsonaro's brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since facing his own Brazilian criminal charges, had said days before the runoff that his brother should leave the country if he lost. Their father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, was convicted earlier this year of plotting a coup after his own 2022 election defeat and remains under house arrest in Brasília.
Federal police are working with Argentine authorities to reconstruct Bolsonaro's exact route out of the country, after finding no record of him passing through a regular Brazilian immigration checkpoint. It remains unclear whether Ecuador is his final stop or a waypoint toward the United States, where his brother has urged him to go.
