The Bolsonaros, a family at odds with the Brazilian justice system

Nobody in Brazil doubted what Flávio Bolsonaro’s priorities would be if he reached the presidency: to pardon his father and push for the removal of the judge who brought the case against him, Alexandre de Moraes. Then came the big surprise — the comeback by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that almost nobody expected. So it was the Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice who went on the offensive without waiting even a day: at the Federal Police’s request he ordered the withdrawal of passports belonging to Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son and defeated candidate. Flávio decided instead to flee to the United States, as his father had done in 2022 and as his brother Eduardo has done — both now convicted by Brazil’s courts.The case that has served as a basis for action by Moraes — whose forceful actions have drawn criticism and not only from ultraconservatives — involves a friend and alleged business partner of Flávio Bolsonaro. The attorney Willer Tomaz is linked to the online gambling industry, which Lula banned before the election with broad public support, arguing that gambling addiction has caused great harm in the country.The case is under seal, but what has emerged indicates the judge is investigating an alleged money‑laundering and foreign currency evasion scheme. Police suspect the far‑right leader is a secret partner of Tomaz, whose name featured during the campaign after police revealed, among other things, that he had a “secret hangar” at Brasília’s airport with a safe allegedly used to hide cash. What is beyond doubt, according to intercepted conversations and seized documents, is the close relationship between Bolsonaro and Tomaz. Flights by both men and their families on private jets to the United States, Europe and Africa have been documented.Moraes and Bolsonaro are arch‑enemies, but in one of those astonishing paradoxes of Brazilian politics they shared a mutual friend whose actions now implicate them both. That figure is the now‑notorious banker Daniel Vorcaro, jailed after his Banco Master collapsed, leaving a monumental hole estimated at about $10 billion.Moraes’s ties to the banker would likely have formed the basis for the impeachment process in the Senate that Bolsonaro dreamed of (and which still cannot be ruled out given the conservative strength in that chamber). Police intercepted conversations in which Vorcaro asked the judge, shortly before being arrested, whether he should leave the country. The banker had signed an astronomical legal consultancy contract worth 131 million reais (about $25 million) with Moraes’s wife’s law firm. To complete the irony, the amount is almost identical to the 134 million reais Bolsonaro requested from Vorcaro — an exorbitant sum purportedly for the production of a biographical film about Jair Bolsonaro. Flávio is also being investigated in the Supreme Court in connection with this case, though by a judge less hostile to him: André Mendonça, a former justice minister under his father, whom the elder Bolsonaro appointed to the high court for being, as he put it, “terribly evangelical.”While the defeated presidential hopeful was fleeing, another legal front opened for him in the STF. That case is before a magistrate who was also once a government minister, in this case under Lula. Judge Flávio Dino announced the opening of an investigation to determine whether Bolsonaro’s campaign received illegal funding from Rockbridge Network, an ultraconservative U.S. network co‑founded by the country’s current vice president, JD Vance. Dino also intends to clarify whether, as the Workers’ Party (PT) has alleged, the tech platform Meta acted covertly to favor the far‑right candidate. In addition, the Federal Police have another ongoing probe into Flávio Bolsonaro over suspected irregularities in the granting of a 3 million reais loan from Banco de Brasília for the purchase of a mansion in the capital valued at 6 million reais (about $1.2 million).Flávio Bolsonaro leaves behind his father, increasingly isolated and confined to his Brasília home where he is serving a 27‑year sentence under house arrest for conspiring to carry out a coup after he refused to acknowledge Lula’s victory in 2022. In the United States he will join his brother Eduardo, who if he returned to Brazil would face a four‑year prison sentence handed down by the STF for intimidating actions against individuals investigating his father. Police suspect part of the money Vorcaro gave Flávio was intended to finance his brother’s activities in the U.S. as a Bolsonaro lobbyist before the Donald Trump administration.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition