Flávio Bolsonaro, defeated by Lula in Sunday's election, and his family have been granted US visas, according to a senior State Department official, after leaving Brazil for the US on Tuesday.
Two close allies told The Washington Post he feared arrest within the week, as he faces investigations over ties to a banker accused of misconduct and a man suspected of laundering money. By early evening, he was in the US, one said, without saying where.
"He's well," a Bolsonaro ally in Texas said, according to The Washington Post. "He's aware that he had to leave to continue the fight against tyranny. Or else he'd be a political prisoner." The exit echoes 2022, when his father, Jair Bolsonaro, fled to Florida after losing to Lula. Another State Department official said Brazil had tried to warn Washington against accepting him.
According to a confidant who advises the Bolsonaro family, Bolsonaro was terrified by the order to surrender his passports, issued in a criminal inquiry over alleged money laundering. The order bore the signature of Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice who had presided over the case of Jair Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro found 10 federal police officers waiting for him as he stepped out of his father's house, the adviser said. "Flávio has given up," they added, speaking of the vote's result and the effective concession Bolsonaro made on Monday. "He's terrified. He is worried his father will die in jail, that he himself will be jailed this week, and that he may have a long prison term ahead given how young he is."
Within the Bolsonaro camp, the view was that the episode is a political prosecution.
