Key Takeaways
Flávio Bolsonaro left Brazil after ignoring an order to give up his passports in a betting laundering probe.Brazil’s betting regulator says his ally Willer Tomaz deposited over $48.2 million on betting websites in 2025.
The Passport Order Was Issued in a Betting Case
Flávio Bolsonaro, who misplaced Brazil’s Oct. 25 presidential runoff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, crossed into Argentina on Tuesday night time together with his spouse and two daughters and boarded a personal jet to Guayaquil, Ecuador, about 40 minutes later, in line with Argentina’s migration authority. The airplane landed in Miami on Wednesday morning, in line with flight-tracking knowledge cited by Brazilian media. The U.S. authorities mentioned it will difficulty visas to the senator and his household, and President Donald Trump mentioned he would approve their entry.
Supreme Court docket Justice Alexandre de Moraes had ordered Bolsonaro on Oct. 26 handy over his Brazilian and Italian passports inside 24 hours, barred him from leaving Brazil, and banned him from contacting lawyer Willer Tomaz. The Federal Police had cited a “concrete and present” danger of flight, pointing to the senator’s financial energy, buildings overseas that would help an extended keep, and his brother Eduardo’s public suggestion that he depart Brazil if he misplaced the election. When the deadline handed, the police canceled his passports.
Bolsonaro is suspected, alongside Tomaz, “of cash laundering by way of betting platforms,” state information company Agência Brasil reported. On the day the order was served, Bolsonaro referred to as it persecution and insisted he would keep.
“I by no means considered leaving the nation,” he mentioned. “I’ll hand over my passports and defend myself towards this aberration, which is a transparent try and intimidate me, however nobody will silence me.”
The investigation, which started as a Federal Police probe within the state of Rio Grande do Sul, seems to be at suspected cash laundering and foreign money evasion. Investigators suspect Bolsonaro and Tomaz are hidden companions in Greatest Guess—a betting website Tomaz based and managed, in line with Exame—and in Alcazar Holdings, an organization based mostly in Madeira, Portugal, the place Bolsonaro allegedly seems as a “grasp” person on a checking account. They flagged about $24.3 million (R$130 million) in suspicious transactions between March and Might 2025, an quantity described as incompatible with the senator’s identified actions.
The 2 males deny any enterprise partnership, and Tomaz’s protection denies that Bolsonaro had entry to the account. On Oct. 23, Moraes ordered a freeze of as much as $1.1 billion (R$6 billion) of Tomaz’s property, a ceiling moderately than an quantity really discovered. Tomaz left Brazil in August and lives within the U.S.
Tomaz is not any strange gambler. A technical observe from the Finance Ministry’s Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA), dated Oct. 1 and revealed by UOL, discovered that he deposited greater than $48.2 million (R$258 million) on betting websites in 2025—practically double the next-largest depositor, and withdrew about $37.4 million (R$200 million). The observe places his complete betting quantity at round $935 million (R$5 billion), a turnover determine that counts winnings guess once more. Tomaz’s representatives say his funds are lawful and declared to tax authorities, and that the betting quantity “doesn’t signify new cash.”
The regulator mentioned betting model Blaze did not flag his transactions, together with 14 deposits of about $93,500 (R$500,000) every in a single day in October 2025, adopted the following day by 12 withdrawals of the identical dimension in 18 minutes. It additionally mentioned there seemed to be “indicators of negligence or intent” by the operator.
A separate inquiry into doable international help for Bolsonaro’s marketing campaign has a prediction market angle. Justice Flávio Dino on Oct. 27 ordered the Federal Police to determine, amongst different issues, who paid for adverts by international accounts that promoted Polymarket odds favoring the senator. Polymarket, which is barred in Brazil, had priced Bolsonaro as the favourite earlier than Lula’s comeback. Dino’s order doesn’t conclude that any crime occurred, and the marketing campaign denies receiving international financing.
Bolsonaro leaves behind a sector in limbo. The nation’s 85 betting licenses lapsed on the day of the runoff below a provisional measure banning sports activities betting and on-line casinos, and Lula has mentioned betting wouldn’t come again. The Supreme Court docket has scheduled a Nov. 3 public listening to on challenges to the ban.
