Brazil Supreme Court investigates Flávio Bolsonaro over $12 million from disgraced banker
SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate and one of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s leading challengers, is under investigation by the Supreme Court over millions of dollars he allegedly received from a disgraced banker to finance a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Documents unsealed late Thursday show that the senator is being investigated for receiving 61 million reais, about $12 million, from Daniel Vorcaro, the former CEO of the collapsed Banco Master, to produce a movie titled “The Dark Horse.”
The probe threatens to complicate Bolsonaro’s presidential bid ahead of the first round of voting scheduled for Oct. 4. He is locked in a tight race with Lula, and any legal fallout could sharpen scrutiny of the Bolsonaro family’s finances and the Supreme Court’s handling of politically charged cases.
The allegations first surfaced publicly in May. Sen. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing, saying Friday at a campaign event in Manaus that he was seeking private investment for a movie.
Vorcaro, who was arrested in March, is accused of defrauding many of Banco Master’s 800,000 clients, including several state government pension funds, out of hundreds of millions of dollars by persuading them to make questionable investments. The scandal has ensnared several high-ranking Brazilian officials.
The documents show that Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça opened the investigation into Sen. Bolsonaro in July at the request of Brazil’s federal police. In recent weeks, allies of Lula have accused Mendonça, whom Jair Bolsonaro appointed to the court, of shielding the senator from investigations.
Mendonça unsealed the documents at the request of Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, who sought to ease a political crisis inside the court and bring transparency to the sprawling Banco Master case.
Brazil’s federal police estimate the bank’s total fraud at about 12 billion reais, or $2.3 billion. The Central Bank shut down Banco Master, whose assets had topped $16 billion, in November.
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