Flavio Bolsonaro, the Brazilian senator who lost Sunday’s presidential runoff to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, entered Argentina on Tuesday night and boarded a private jet for Ecuador, Argentina’s National Directorate of Migration said Wednesday, despite a Supreme Court order barring him from leaving Brazil.
The agency said on X that the 45-year-old crossed the border with his wife and two daughters and entered “with valid travel documents and no legal impediment.” The statement did not explain how he held usable documents after Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him on Monday to surrender his passports within 24 hours, according to reporting compiled by The Eastern Updates. Three people familiar with the matter said he left Brazil after refusing to comply, and a source close to Bolsonaro said he feared arrest at home.
Argentina first said it had no record of his entry, then reversed course early Wednesday.
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The revised account places the family at the Tancredo Neves International Bridge crossing in Misiones province before they boarded a Gulfstream G400 operated by Baires Fly S.A., with a flight plan filed for Guayaquil. Argentine records put boarding at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Flight-tracking data from Flightradar24 shows the aircraft lifting off from Puerto Iguazú just after midnight, or 0300 GMT. Baires Fly had not responded to a request for comment.
Where Bolsonaro ended up is disputed in the available reporting. US outlets citing anonymous sources said he reached the United States on Tuesday, and three sources said he had left Brazil for the United States. A senior State Department official said the department will issue visas to him and his family, though the department did not confirm his travel plans. President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday that he would approve of Bolsonaro entering the country. His current location was unclear Wednesday.
He faces legal exposure on several fronts. On Tuesday, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered police to investigate alleged foreign funding of his campaign and other interference from abroad, including social media manipulation. He is also under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering, and with his election loss he is set to lose parliamentary immunity. Brazilian news outlets have linked a separate Supreme Court inquiry to the financing of Dark Horse, a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a 27-year sentence for attempting to overturn his 2022 defeat to Lula. All of these are investigative steps and allegations; no court has ruled on the foreign-funding claims.
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Lula’s coalition raised the foreign-interference question weeks before the vote. In September it asked the electoral court to investigate possible US interference in Bolsonaro’s favor, telling the court that a political organizer tied to a US conservative donor network worked at his São Paulo campaign headquarters. The coalition also asked that Flavio Bolsonaro and his brother Eduardo, a former congressman who lives in the United States, be barred from seeking office for eight years. Those are claims by his opponents. A lawyer who follows electoral law told reporters the court was unlikely to rule before voting began.
The vote itself was not close at the end. The electoral court’s final tally gave Lula 51.79 percent, or 64.26 million votes, to Bolsonaro’s 48.21 percent, or 59.83 million, a gap of roughly 4.4 million. Polls in the last two weeks had pointed the other way: a CNT/MDA survey released October 16 had Bolsonaro at 46.8 percent to Lula’s 45.9, while Quaest had him up 46 to 44 and Datafolha 47 to 45.
Bolsonaro had led the October 4 first round with about 47 percent to Lula’s 45 percent, and on that night he proclaimed that the Workers’ Party era was over. Lula became the first candidate since Brazil’s return to democracy in 1985 to win a runoff after finishing second in round one.
Bolsonaro has not conceded. He says the runoff should be annulled because Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extended polling hours by two hours on election day over transport difficulties that kept some citizens from voting. Reports indicate his own campaign had also asked for more time because of rain in southern Brazil, and analysts told reporters an annulment was unlikely given the size of the loss, which was more than double his father’s losing margin in 2022.
Lula, who turned 81 on Tuesday, is due to be sworn in for his fourth term in January.
