The Betting Probe Behind Flávio Bolsonaro’s Escape From Brazil
Key Takeaways
- Flávio Bolsonaro left Brazil after ignoring an order to surrender his passports in a betting laundering probe.
- Brazil’s betting regulator says his ally Willer Tomaz deposited over $48.2 million on betting sites in 2025.
The Passport Order Was Issued in a Betting Case
Flávio Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil’s Oct. 25 presidential runoff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, crossed into Argentina on Tuesday night with his wife and two daughters and boarded a private jet to Guayaquil, Ecuador, about 40 minutes later, according to Argentina’s migration authority. The plane landed in Miami on Wednesday morning, according to flight-tracking data cited by Brazilian media. The U.S. government said it would issue visas to the senator and his family, and President Donald Trump said he would approve their entry.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes had ordered Bolsonaro on Oct. 26 to hand over his Brazilian and Italian passports within 24 hours, barred him from leaving Brazil, and banned him from contacting lawyer Willer Tomaz. The Federal Police had cited a “concrete and current” risk of flight, pointing to the senator’s economic power, structures abroad that could support a long stay, and his brother Eduardo’s public suggestion that he leave Brazil if he lost the election. When the deadline passed, the police canceled his passports.
Bolsonaro is suspected, alongside Tomaz, “of money laundering through betting platforms,” state news agency Agência Brasil reported. On the day the order was served, Bolsonaro called it persecution and insisted he would stay.
“I never thought of leaving the country,” he said. “I will hand over my passports and defend myself against this aberration, which is a clear attempt to intimidate me, but no one will silence me.”
The investigation, which began as a Federal Police probe in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, looks at suspected money laundering and currency evasion. Investigators suspect Bolsonaro and Tomaz are hidden partners in Best Bet—a betting site Tomaz founded and controlled, according to Exame—and in Alcazar Holdings, a company based in Madeira, Portugal, where Bolsonaro allegedly appears as a “master” user on a bank account. They flagged about $24.3 million (R$130 million) in suspicious transactions between March and May 2025, an amount described as incompatible with the senator’s known activities.
The two men deny any business partnership, and Tomaz’s defense denies that Bolsonaro had access to the account. On Oct. 23, Moraes ordered a freeze of up to $1.1 billion (R$6 billion) of Tomaz’s assets, a ceiling rather than an amount actually found. Tomaz left Brazil in August and lives in the U.S.
Tomaz is no ordinary gambler. A technical note from the Finance Ministry’s Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA), dated Oct. 1 and revealed by UOL, found that he deposited more than $48.2 million (R$258 million) on betting sites in 2025—nearly double the next-largest depositor, and withdrew about $37.4 million (R$200 million). The note puts his total betting volume at around $935 million (R$5 billion), a turnover figure that counts winnings bet again. Tomaz’s representatives say his funds are lawful and declared to tax authorities, and that the betting volume “does not represent new money.”
The regulator said betting brand Blaze failed to flag his transactions, including 14 deposits of about $93,500 (R$500,000) each in a single day in October 2025, followed the next day by 12 withdrawals of the same size in 18 minutes. It also said there appeared to be “signs of negligence or intent” by the operator.
A separate inquiry into possible foreign support for Bolsonaro’s campaign has a prediction market angle. Justice Flávio Dino on Oct. 27 ordered the Federal Police to identify, among other things, who paid for ads by foreign accounts that promoted Polymarket odds favoring the senator. Polymarket, which is barred in Brazil, had priced Bolsonaro as the favorite before Lula’s comeback. Dino’s order does not conclude that any crime occurred, and the campaign denies receiving foreign financing.
Bolsonaro leaves behind a sector in limbo. The country’s 85 betting licenses lapsed on the day of the runoff under a provisional measure banning sports betting and online casinos, and Lula has said betting would not come back. The Supreme Court has scheduled a Nov. 3 public hearing on challenges to the ban.
