Why Flávio Bolsonaro fled Brazil after losing the election

Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil’s presidential election, fled his country with his wife and their two daughters and arrived in Miami on Wednesday morning.

The U.S. government had granted visas the day before to the 45-year-old senator and his family. They first crossed into Argentina, traveled to Ecuador, and later to Florida.

Bolsonaro is being investigated by Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court over alleged corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion in two cases.

The high court is investigating him for allegedly using a sports betting company to launder fraudulent deductions from government pensions paid to elderly people.

In a separate case, he is accused of accepting millions of dollars from a disgraced banker.

Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro arrived in Miami Wednesday after fleeing the South American country.

The defeated presidential candidate was notified on Monday of a Supreme Federal Court order to surrender his Brazilian passports.

In a video, he said he received it outside the home where his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is serving a 27-year sentence of house arrest for an attempted coup after his 2022 election defeat to Lula.

After that defeat, Jair Bolsonaro fled to Florida. He returned to the country three months later.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier Wednesday that he would welcome Bolsonaro coming to the United States, calling him and his family “good people.”

“The election was really strange, and I thought it was terrible,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on his way back from a campaign event in Texas. He offered no further details but stressed that he did not support the election results.