The Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro arrived this Wednesday at Florida after fleeing his country via Argentina, days after losing the election to President Lula.
The 45-year-old conservative senator boarded a private jet at the Opa-Locka airport, outside Miami.stated a journalist from the AFPat the end of a cinematic escape that caused astonishment inside and outside Brazil.
Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro convicted in Brazil, fled his country to Argentina on Tuesday night and left by plane for Ecuador, where he made a brief stop early Wednesday to take off for the United States.
He State Department said that USA He would grant a visa to him and his family, who accompanied him in his escape.
Flávio Bolsonaro did not recognize his electoral defeat after Sunday’s runoff against the leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He had a court order not to leave his country due to an investigation for money laundering.
His brother Eduardo Bolsonaro, who was a deputy, He lives in the United States and is also being investigated in Brazil in several judicial cases..
Bolsonaro’s departure from Brazil was surrounded by great confusion. American media reported on Tuesday that the Brazilian politician was already in the North American country.
Sources from the government of Argentina, whose president Javier Milei is an ally of the Bolsonaros, they denied that the senator had entered the country.
But hours later, the Argentine National Migration Directorate announced that Bolsonaro had crossed the border shortly before midnight. “with competent travel documentation without any legal impediment”.
Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters then boarded at the Argentine airport of Puerto Iguazú “a private flight dispatched by the company Baires Fly SA bound for the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador.”stated the statement in X from the migration directorate.
In the early hours of Wednesday, the aircraft landed in Guayaquil, where it refueled and took off again a half hour later, reporters from AFP on the spot.
The president donald trump He is a close ally of the Bolsonaro family. On Monday he denounced that Brazil’s elections were “rigged.”
Canceled passports
On Monday, Flávio Bolsonaro said that Brazilian justice had prohibited him from leaving the country in an “attempt to intimidate him.”
He also denied any intention to leave and assured that he was going to serve as head of the opposition.
“I never thought about leaving the country. I am going to hand over my passports and I am going to defend myself from this aberration”he said in a video.
The senator is investigated for alleged corruption and money laundering in the financing of a film about his father, among other open investigations.
A Brazilian police source told the AFP that the senator’s Brazilian passports, including diplomatic ones, were cancelled.
However, he has had Italian nationality since 2023, as stated in a 2025 document from the Italian Parliament consulted by AFP.
Lula said on Tuesday that he did not have “precise information” about an escape by his electoral rival, but that this would be “shameful.”
“Brazil is his second homeland, the first is to lick the boots of the United States”said the re-elected president during the celebration of his 81st birthday in Brasilia.
The information about Bolsonaro’s departure caused stupefaction in his camp.
“We still have no news of his whereabouts.”his campaign manager Rogério Marinho told reporters in Brasilia.
“I received a text message from him (in the morning), where he said that he would let some time pass today and that he would talk to us later, and that’s it. It was the only communication we had”he added.
In the footsteps of his family
Eduardo Bolsonaro had already been liaising with the Trump government for months.
The United States has already welcomed his father Jair for three months, who left for that country before Lula’s inauguration in 2023..
Eduardo Bolsonaro said last week on a US podcast that he was in favor of his brother leaving Brazil if he did not win the elections due to judicial investigations against him.
After losing the elections, Flávio Bolsonaro said that he would request an annulment of the runoff, estimating that the judicial decision to extend the vote by two hours had benefited Lula..
The leftist president he won by almost 52% of the votes, compared to 48% for the conservative, a difference of more than 4 million votes.
Bolsonaro was the favorite to win the runoff after winning the first round.
He had promised that if he won, his first government action would be to free his father, Jair Bolsonaro, sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup against Lula after losing the elections in 2022.
