Flávio Bolsonaro travelling to United States on private jet from Argentina

The plane that Argentine authorities say is carrying Brazil's defeated right-wing presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro made a brief stop in Ecuador on Wednesday before reportedly continuing towards the United States.

Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil's run-off election to incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday, boarded a flight to Ecuador after arriving in Argentina on Tuesday night.

The arrival was confirmed by Argentina's National Directorate of Migration in a statement on X.

The 45-year-old Brazilian crossed the border at 10.50pm on Tuesday via the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, accompanied by his wife, Fernanda Antunes Figueira Bolsonaro, and their two daughters, Carolina and Luiza, according to the agency.

All four entered the country "with valid travel documents and no legal impediment", it added, saying their movements had been registered "without incident", despite a Brazilian court order banning Bolsonaro from leaving the country.

At 11.30pm, the family boarded "a private flight operated by the company Baires Fly SA bound for the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador," the government agency said.

According to a report by the Noticias Argentinas news agency, citing Brazilian media, the aircraft was a Gulfstream G400 registered in Argentina under the tail number LV-JQW.

Data from the Flightradar24 website showed the plane taking off shortly after midnight on Wednesday (0300 GMT) from Puerto Iguazú, in Argentina's northeast. It landed in Guayaquil at 5.46am Argentine time, according to records cited by the Brazilian press, before departing again less than an hour later.

The aircraft's route crossed Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru, avoiding Brazilian airspace. The stop in Ecuador was to refuel, according to Brazilian broadcaster CBN.

Bolsonaro's final destination was not immediately confirmed, although Brazilian media reported that the plane had continued towards Miami, where it was expected to land at Opa-locka Executive Airport.

There was no independently corroborated confirmation of its arrival in the United States by the time of publication.

Baires Fly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Allegations against Milei

The episode took on a new political dimension after Mexican businessman and lawyer Simón Levy claimed in a telephone interview with Argentine television news channel A24 that President Javier Milei had played a central role in coordinating Bolsonaro's departure from Brazil.

"The only person who knew about this was President Milei. He has been and was involved in coordinating this entire operation," Levy claimed, adding that "thanks to President Milei, Flávio is alive today,"

Levy reiterated that Milei had played a decisive role in the alleged operation but did not provide publicly corroborated evidence for his claims. He provided no reason for why Bolsonaro's life would be supposedly at risk.

He also described the operation as US-led and referred to an aircraft registered in the United States that had arrived in Fort Lauderdale.

His account did not independently establish how the journey was organised or whether Milei coordinated with US President Donald Trump.

Argentina's National Directorate of Migration confirmed the country's role as a transit point for Bolsonaro and his family, but its statement did not explain who organised the journey or allege political intervention by Milei's government.

In Argentina, opposition lawmakers called for an investigation into the assistance allegedly offered by the government.

Fuerza Patria lawmaker Juan Grabois accused Milei of putting "his personal interests and his ideological stance above the national interest."

Myriam Bregman, of the left-wing Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores, said that "the highest authorities in the government must clarify whether Bolsonaro, Milei's fugitive friend, passed through Argentina."

She added that "what nobody doubts is that these right-wingers proclaim that 'you reap what you sow' and boast of their heavy-handedness, except when it comes to themselves."

"In that case, they turn to the protection of the Mileis, the Trumps and the members of the far-right international," she concluded.

 

US will issue visas

The US State Department said on Tuesday it would issue visas to the senator and his family.

"The State Department will issue visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States," a senior State Department official told the AFP news agency.

The announcement did not specify the category or duration of the visas and did not confirm that the family had been granted political asylum.

Trump also expressed support for the possibility of receiving Bolsonaro, although he acknowledged that he did not know his exact whereabouts.

"I heard he was in Argentina. I don't know where he is, but I heard he was there," Trump told reporters.

Asked whether he would approve Bolsonaro's entry into the United States, he replied: "I would approve it."

"I think they're decent people. As far as I'm concerned, that would be fine," he added.

US media earlier reported, citing anonymous sources, that Bolsonaro had already arrived in the United States on Tuesday.

Brazil's Supreme Court banned Bolsonaro from leaving the country and ordered him to hand over his passports. The Federal Police had cancelled his passports after the deadline for surrendering them expired, according to international media reports.

He is under investigation for alleged corruption and money-laundering and, following his election defeat, is also set to lose parliamentary immunity.

A police source said that Bolsonaro's Brazilian and diplomatic passports had been cancelled, but the senator has held Italian nationality since 2023, according to AFP.

 

'Shameful'

Reports of Bolsonaro's exit from Brazil came as a shock to his political camp.

"We still don't have any news about his whereabouts," Bolsonaro's campaign manager Rogerio Marinho told reporters in Brasília on Tuesday.

"I received a text message from him this morning, where he said he would let some time pass today and then would talk with us, and that was it," he said. "That was the only communication we had."

Bolsonaro said in a video posted on Instagram a day earlier that he "never had any intention of leaving the country" and that the ban on his departure was a scare tactic.

Lula, who won the election with 51.8 percent of the vote, called fleeing the country a "shameful" act.

"A person who sneaks out of their country must have something to hide," he said in Brasília during his 81st birthday celebration.

Following his loss, Bolsonaro said he would seek to annul the result, citing the decision to extend polling hours over transportation difficulties that prevented some citizens from voting.

Lula had requested the extension, as had Bolsonaro over bad weather in parts of the country.

Trump, a close ally of Flávio's father and Brazil's former leader Jair Bolsonaro, claimed Monday that the elections were "rigged."

Bolsonaro seemed like the more likely winner after he came out on top in the first round of elections earlier this month.

He campaigned on a pledge to liberate his father, who is under house arrest for coup-plotting after his own electoral loss to Lula in 2022.

Jair Bolsonaro never conceded defeat and left the country on the eve of his rival's inauguration, only returning to Brazil three months later.

 

– TIMES/AFP/NA