Flávio Bolsonaro lands in Miami after fleeing Brazil via Argentina

The plane carrying Flávio Bolsonaro and his family landed in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning. The Brazilian senator arrived at Opa-locka Executive Airport, north of Miami, at 9:20 a.m., after fleeing Brazil less than two days after losing the Brazilian presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro arrived in Florida after promising he would remain in Brazil to lead the opposition to Lula. Before leaving the country, he failed to comply with an order from Brazil’s Supreme Court requiring him to surrender his passports. On Tuesday, the administration of Donald Trump announced that it would issue visas for Bolsonaro, his wife and their two daughters.

Tuesday was marked by a series of confusing and self-serving accounts, with no one certain of Bolsonaro’s whereabouts. Earlier in the day, Argentina’s immigration authorities denied that he had entered the country, which was true at the time: he had not yet crossed the border.

Bolsonaro entered Argentina at 10:50 p.m. that night with his wife and two daughters, crossing via the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, which links Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, with Puerto Iguazú, Argentina. The crossing was later confirmed by Argentina’s immigration agency in a statement issued at 2 a.m.

Barely 40 minutes after crossing the border, the family was on board a Gulfstream G400 operated by Baires Fly, which had been waiting at Puerto Iguazú airport since Monday.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, regarded as the Bolsonaro family’s chief adversary, had ordered the cancellation of Flávio Bolsonaro’s Brazilian passports and the surrender of his Italian passport, which he obtained in 2023.

According to the flight manifest, Bolsonaro crossed the border using his European passport, while his wife and daughters travelled on Brazilian passports. The aircraft took off shortly after midnight for Guayaquil, Ecuador. It landed there before dawn, refuelled and departed again half an hour later, according to the newspaper El Universo.

Flávio Bolsonaro is under investigation by Brazil’s Supreme Court on suspicion of money laundering and foreign-exchange evasion alongside his friend Willer Tomaz, a lawyer with business interests in the betting industry. Federal Police investigators suspect the senator is Tomaz’s silent partner. According to Folha de S.Paulo, Bolsonaro at one point had administrative access to a bank account belonging to a Tomaz company registered in Madeira, and the two men share addresses, travel records and business associates. Both deny any wrongdoing.

Bolsonaro’s stopovers were not accidental. Javier Milei’s Argentina is the Bolsonaro family’s closest ally in the region and has yet to recognize Lula’s election victory. “There will be no statement,” Milei’s government said. In July, at the launch of Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign in São Paulo, Milei referred to Lula as a “convict” and a “thief,” prompting Brazil to summon its ambassador in Buenos Aires for consultations.

Daniel Noboa’s Ecuador, meanwhile, is one of Donald Trump’s closest partners in Latin America and, by extension, an ally of the Bolsonaros. Neither Argentina’s presidency nor Baires Fly immediately responded to requests for comment.

Bolsonaro’s decision to leave Brazil comes after a defeat that neither he nor his supporters had expected. Although he finished ahead of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the first round on October 4, Lula staged a comeback to win Sunday’s runoff with 51.79% of the vote, compared with 48.21% for Bolsonaro. It was an unprecedented turnaround in Brazil’s democratic history.

Flávio Bolsonaro did not concede defeat, but hours later insisted he had never intended to leave the country and would instead lead the opposition against the left. His Senate term expires at the end of the year and, after 24 years in politics, he will no longer hold elected office. Without a seat in Congress, he will also lose the legal protections afforded to officeholders.

What Bolsonaro plans to do in the United States remains unclear, but the path has already been paved. The country has become a political rear base for the Bolsonaro family. His father, Jair Bolsonaro, flew to Orlando two days before leaving office in December 2022 and spent three months there while his supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace in Brasília. His brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, has lived in Texas since early 2025 and, from there, lobbied the Trump administration to impose tariffs on Brazil and sanctions on Moraes. Brazil’s Supreme Court later sentenced Eduardo Bolsonaro to four years and two months in prison over those efforts.

The Trump administration has made its support clear. His administration appointed a Brazil adviser close to the Bolsonaro family and has now opened the door to the son who was expected to inherit the Bolsonaro political movement.

On Monday, less than 24 hours after Brazil’s election, Trump publicly questioned the result. “It looked like another rigged election, frankly,” the Republican president told reporters. “I didn’t take sides, but it was a terrible look for the world.”

Trump, who faces pivotal elections of his own in less than a week and has already sown doubts about the process, went on to add: “Elections have to be indisputable, and it looked really bad to me.”

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