Brazilian police probe claims Flávio Bolsonaro fled to Argentina after election defeat

In a video post shared on social media on Monday, Bolsonaro said he had been banned from leaving Brazil and that he had been "served a notice to surrender my passports." Brazilian Federal Police (PF) have been in contact with Argentine authorities on Tuesday in an effort to find out whether Flávio Bolsonaro has left Brazil via an airport in Argentina. PF sources quoted by the Metrópoles newspaper said the Liberal Party (PL) candidate - who was defeated by leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Sunday's presidential election - has not passed through any official Brazilian border checkpoint in recent hours. However, the same sources stressed that it would be possible for him to cross the border without being subjected to checks. It comes after Argentine outlet Infobae reported that the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro had arrived in the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazú at 2 am on Tuesday, using his national identity card. He was reportedly preparing to continue his journey to the United States on a private flight. According to Infobae, the aircraft was a Gulfstream G400, registration LV-JQW, owned by the company Baires Fly SA, which requested customs clearance for four passengers and three crew members. The plane left Buenos Aires for Puerto Iguazú on Monday at 10:20 pm. Since early Tuesday morning, Bolsonaro's allies have been trying to contact him, without success, according to Letícia Casado, a columnist for the UOL news website. Euronews has contacted the PF for comment. Rogério Marinho, Bolsonaro's general campaign coordinator, has denied that Bolsonaro has left Brazil. Argentina's government has also rejected the claims. On Friday, two days before the second round of the presidential election, Bolsonaro's brother Eduardo argued that he should leave Brazil if he were defeated. Eduardo has been living in the US since 2025, after being sentenced to prison by Brazil's Supreme Federal Court for coercion in the case involving his father Jair's attempts to overturn the results of the 2022 election. The rumours come after Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered that Bolsonaro hand over his passports to the PF. Bolsonaro agreed with his legal team that he would comply with the order and that he would deliver the documents to the authorities on Tuesday morning, but this has apparently yet to happen. US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the Brazilian election looked "rigged," without providing evidence. Speaking to the media, Trump said the vote "looked terrible" and "like another rigged election." "I didn't take sides," Trump told reporters when asked for his thoughts. "Elections have to be indisputable, and it looked very bad to me." Bolsonaro initially refused to recognise Lula's victory, saying it was "impossible" to acknowledge the result and that the election should have been annulled. He later said he would "organise the opposition." In a video post shared on social media on Monday, he added that he had been banned from leaving Brazil and had been "served a notice to surrender my passports."