A private plane touched down at Opa-locka airport outside Miami on Wednesday, ending a day in which almost no one could say where Flávio Bolsonaro was. The right-wing senator, who lost Brazil’s presidential election on Sunday, had dropped out of sight for roughly 24 hours as he made his way out of the country with his wife and two daughters, according to a U.S. official and news footage of his arrival.
His route took him overland into Argentina on Tuesday night, according to that country’s National Directorate of Migration. From there, the family flew privately to Guayaquil, Ecuador, before boarding a second flight to the United States.
The departure came only hours after Brazilian authorities canceled Bolsonaro’s passports and alerted immigration officers to bar him from leaving. Investigators are examining his ties to a Brazilian lawyer accused of laundering more than $1 billion through an online gambling scheme. Brazilian officials have not said how he managed to reach Argentina despite the travel ban.
He is also under a separate police inquiry over millions of dollars he raised from a banker at the center of a major corruption case, money that went toward a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The elder Bolsonaro is serving a long prison sentence after being convicted of plotting a coup following his 2022 election loss to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Lula defeated the younger Bolsonaro as well on Sunday. Bolsonaro first challenged the result, then conceded while maintaining that Lula had won unfairly. President Donald Trump has also cast doubt on the outcome, saying the vote looked “rigged.”
A senior State Department official said on Tuesday that the United States intends to grant visas to Bolsonaro and his family. The move could deepen friction between Washington and Lula, who has accused Trump of meddling in Brazil’s internal affairs.
