SAO PAULO — Brazil’s political landscape has been upended by new allegations that Senate member and presumptive presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro solicited more than $12 million in funding from a jailed, fraud-accused banker, a scandal that threatens to derail his 2024 election bid against incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. On Wednesday, the lawmaker issued a flat denial of any illegal activity connected to the request. The controversy first came to light via an investigation published by The Intercept Brazil, which released leaked voice recordings of Bolsonaro asking Daniel Vorcaro, a former bank chief at the heart of one of Brazil’s biggest recent corruption scandals, for 61 million reais to fund a biographical film about his father, Jair Bolsonaro, the disgraced former Brazilian president who is currently imprisoned on corruption charges. Bolsonaro has framed the project, titled *The Dark Horse*, as a private work chronicling the elder Bolsonaro’s political life. Vorcaro, who led the now-defunct Banco Master until its forced shutdown, has been in custody since March this year, facing a slew of charges including orchestrating a massive fraud scheme that conned thousands of the bank’s clients out of millions of dollars through deceptive, unregulated investment deals. Both Brazil’s Federal Police and the Supreme Court have been leading a sprawling probe into the scandal, which has already dragged multiple high-profile political figures into its orbit since early 2024. In his first public response to the revelations, Flávio Bolsonaro pushed back hard against any implication of wrongdoing. “This is simply a case of a son seeking private sponsorship for a private film about his father’s story. No public funds were involved at all,” the senator said in an official statement. He went on to reject all claims of impropriety, adding: “I never offered any illegal favors in exchange for funding, I never held secret off-the-books meetings with Vorcaro, I never mediated business deals with the federal government, and I have not received any money from him at this point.” Political analysts warn that the timing of the scandal, which comes just days before Flávio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party is set to formally nominate him as its presidential candidate for October’s election, could deal a catastrophic blow to his campaign. Thomas Traumann, a veteran Brazilian political consultant, noted that Flávio Bolsonaro’s political identity is almost entirely tied to his family name. “Flávio Bolsonaro is still a relatively unknown figure to most Brazilian voters, and his biggest political asset by far is his status as the son of the former president,” Traumann explained. “A scandal of this magnitude, where he is caught asking for large sums of money from a banker under active criminal investigation for fraud, and showing clear personal ties to him, could be devastating. It may even force the Brazilian opposition to replace its candidate at the last minute to preserve its chances of winning in October.” According to The Intercept Brazil’s reporting, the messages from Flávio Bolsonaro to Vorcaro were sent back in October 2023, months before Vorcaro’s arrest. Since being taken into custody, the former banker has been negotiating a potential plea deal with federal prosecutors in exchange for cooperating with their investigation. Brazil’s Central Bank first moved to shut down Banco Master, which held more than $16 billion in total assets at its peak, last November, after regulators uncovered massive irregularities in the bank’s operations. Since the allegations against Flávio Bolsonaro became public, he and his political allies have launched a counteroffensive, making unsubstantiated claims that the entire scandal is a plot orchestrated by the current Lula administration to undermine his campaign. To date, Brazil’s Federal Police have found no evidence linking Vorcaro or his scheme to Lula or his government. The controversy is just the latest to hit the Bolsonaro-aligned opposition in recent weeks: earlier this week, Sen. Ciro Nogueira, a former chief of staff to Jair Bolsonaro, also denied published reports that he had accepted regular, undeclared payments from Vorcaro in exchange for political support.
Brazil presidential hopeful Flávio Bolsonaro denies wrongdoing after asking banker for millions
