Bolsonaro faces corruption probe weeks before elections

SAO PAULO (AP):

Brazilian presidential candidate Senator Flávio Bolsonaro is under investigation for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion for receiving millions of dollars from a disgraced banker to finance a movie about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil’s top court unsealed several documents late Thursday that show Bolsonaro, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s primary opponent, is under investigation for receiving US$12 million from a banker at the centre of a corruption scandal to produce an unreleased movie titled The Dark Horse.

The investigation, which centres on whether the Bolsonaro family misused the funds and whether the payments were properly reported to Brazilian authorities, threatens to undermine Bolsonaro’s bid for the presidency. The first round of elections is slated for October 4, and the senator is locked in a tight race with Lula.

The banker, Daniel 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 convincing them to make questionable investments. The scandal has engulfed several high-ranking officials in Brazil.

The allegations first became public in May. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing and said yesterday during a campaign event in the Amazonian city of Manaus that he was seeking private investment for the movie.

“It is very positive that the documents are unsealed,” Flávio Bolsonaro told journalists at the event. “I want transparency in everything. I will only confirm what I always said. There’s nothing wrong about the movie.”

One document alleges that Eduardo Bolsonaro, who lives in Texas and is one of Flavio Bolsonaro’s brothers, “guided how the resources (sent by Vorcaro) could be managed in the United States.”

Prosecutors suspect the funds for the film were used to pay Eduardo Bolsonaro’s expenses and to promote Flavio Bolsonaro’s political agenda to the Trump administration, documents show.

Eduardo Bolsonaro denied any wrongdoing in his social media channels and said investigators “are trying to repeat the mechanism that worked against Jair Bolsonaro.” The former president was sentenced by Brazil’s Supreme Court to 27 years in prison after a coup attempt.

Brazil’s federal police seized documents from the film’s production company and from lawmaker Mário Frias, who sent about US$400,000 to a non-profit linked to the film. The production company and Frias deny any wrongdoing.

Supreme Court Justice André Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee, opened the investigation into Bolsonaro in July at the request of Brazil’s federal police.