The banker, the film, and the scandal that threatens Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy

Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and a hopeful presidential contender in a few months, fired his marketing chief last week. He has been maneuvering for days to desperately obtain a photograph that, he believes, could pull him out of the crisis that has shaken his campaign.

Bolsonaro’s son arrived in Washington on Monday. The calculation is that if Donald Trump makes room for him in his tight presidential schedule and they pose together, he could regain ground in the polls. The campaign had been running full speed for him until media outlet Intercept Brasil published an exclusive linking Bolsonaro’s son directly to the mastermind behind one of the largest frauds in recent memory: the Banco Master case.

The link between the right-wing candidate and the bankrupt institution is Daniel Vorcaro, a banker currently in prison whom Flávio claimed not to know — until all of Brazil heard, in the audio released by Intercept Brasil, the friendly tone with which he demanded the millions they had agreed upon for a biographical film about Jair Bolsonaro. The news hit like a bombshell, affecting Flávio Bolsonaro, of course, but the São Paulo Stock Exchange and the Brazilian real also felt the blow on May 13.

Details began to surface that increased suspicions. A few days later, in the wake of a new media revelation, candidate Bolsonaro had to backtrack once again. He admitted that he had also visited the banker after his initial arrest, when he was sent home with an electronic ankle monitor. In other words, when signs that Banco Master was facing serious liquidity problems were already evident, the senator was in contact with the bank’s owner, who has cost the public coffers a fortune.

Now a poll has measured the impact of the Banco Master case on voter sentiment. Bolsonaro is bruised but not sunk. The results of the Datafolha survey released last Friday indicate that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would increase his lead both in the first round and the runoff; yet, amid the crisis, the right‑winger still trails closely behind the Workers’ Party leader: Lula polls at 47% and Bolsonaro at 43%. Both share the lead in the race, well ahead of any other contender. Before the scandal they were tied at 45%. This Monday it became public knowledge that Lula has begun preventive radiotherapy treatment after a cancerous skin lesion was removed in April, which will bring attention to his health and age.

At the time the poll was published, Bolsonarismo also received a boost of enthusiasm: Italy refused to extradite a former pro‑Bolsonaro deputy who fled to the European country to evade justice.

There are four months remaining until the elections, and three to formalize candidacies. And, people in Brazil say, the campaign will truly begin only after the World Cup ends on July 19. Bolsonaro’s allies — both the ideological and the opportunistic — are holding their breath for further revelations and weighing options, while the candidate tries to calm his party and dines with business leaders. The two former right‑wing governors competing with Senator Bolsonaro have tried to seize the moment but have been unable to take off in the polls.

When Intercept Brasil published its exclusive, Brazil’s political world took notice, because a few years earlier another of its scoops — the improper relationship between the judge and the prosecutor in the Lava Jato case — laid the groundwork for the annulment of Lula’s convictions. He soon regained his political rights, entered the campaign, and staged a cinematic political comeback.

The current scandal has focused attention on another film that excited the most extremist wing of Bolsonarismo, though it had little resonance outside that sphere. The plan made sense: commissioning a Hollywood hagiography of Jair Bolsonaro and releasing it on the eve of the election would ensure the still‑leader of Brazil’s far right remained present in the campaign even if he were convicted, jailed and isolated, as happened. Confined at home with a 27‑year sentence, he is barred from using a cell phone or social media.

After the initial dismay when he named his eldest son political heir and candidate, Flávio began to rise quickly in the polls until he tied with President Lula. He stayed there for weeks until the audio in which he calls the banker “brother” and begs him to provide the promised money — because payments were overdue and production was at risk — was released.

Vorcaro, who over the years cultivated political connections and contacts at the Central Bank of Brazil, agreed to about $24 million, of which he paid half before being arrested while trying to flee the country on a private plane.

The film is titled Dark Horse. It recounts, in a messianic tone, Bolsonaro’s rise to power, with the 2018 stabbing as a turning point in his life and the focus of the trailer’s climax. That preview revealed the film was shot in English, an issue that became fodder for memes on Brazilian social networks. Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, plays the ultra‑right former president who is serving a sentence for attempting a coup. According to Brazilian press reports, the American actor left in haste without finishing his scenes, terrified by a police massacre that killed 121 people last October in Rio de Janeiro.

Police suspect that after the multi-million disbursement that made Bolsonaro’s film the most expensive in Brazilian cinema, there may have been a plot to finance the stay in the United States of Bolsonaro’s third son, Eduardo, the clan’s emissary tasked with greasing Bolsonarismo’s ties with the Trumpist world.

Meanwhile, the banker has lost his lawyer after authorities rejected his attempt to negotiate a plea deal, because the information he provided was insufficient given the volume of evidence and proof they have already gathered.

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