- Airline chief says plane that took Flavio Bolsonaro to the US was paid for by an intermediary from a US bank account.
- Flavio fled Brazil after a shock election defeat, leaving via Argentina and Ecuador while ordered to surrender passports amid investigations.
- Luis Grande said a broker with US and Argentine passports transferred $150,000 from his US company account into an Argentine bank.
- US outlets linked the charter to Jason Miller, a Trump adviser; the White House has not commented on the reports.
The plane that whisked Brazil’s Flavio Bolsonaro to the United States after his shock election defeat was paid for by an intermediary from a US bank account, the head of the airline has told AFP.
Bolsonaro, the eldest son of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, was blindsided by his election defeat to leftist incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday, after leading a first-round vote earlier this month.
Following the vote, the 45-year-old snuck out of Brazil via Argentina and Ecuador in a cloak-and-dagger operation, after being ordered to surrender his passports due to several ongoing investigations against him.
The specifics of his escape have been murky, but on Thursday the head of the Argentine airline that flew him and his family to Florida revealed some of the details to AFP.
“I was hired by a broker that I’ve known for 10 years, who lives in the United States,” said Luis Grande, head of the Baires Fly airline, speaking by phone from Florida.
The intermediary, who holds US and Argentine passports and whose identity Grande declined to reveal, transferred $150,000 from his company’s account at a US bank to an Argentine bank.
Grande said he did not know for whom the intermediary was working.
Some US media, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, have reported that the plane was chartered by Jason Miller, an adviser to Donald Trump.
The White House has not commented on the matter.
