Bolsonaro's movements shrouded in doubt after private flight to Ecuador

Confusion surrounds the whereabouts of Flávio Bolsonaro, the defeated Brazilian presidential candidate, after Brazil cancelled his passports and Argentine migration authorities said he had boarded a flight to Ecuador. Sources had told the BBC earlier on Tuesday that Bolsonaro had arrived in the United States, but Argentine officials later said he had crossed Brazil's land border into Argentina late on Tuesday night local time. In a post on X, the migration authorities said he, his wife and two daughters had boarded a private flight bound for the city of Guayaquil shortly after crossing. It is not clear whether Ecuador would be his final destination.

Earlier on Tuesday, a senior US official confirmed that the State Department would issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry, were they to request them. Asked later about the family's whereabouts, President Donald Trump told reporters: "I heard he was in Argentina."

Speculation began hours after Brazil's Supreme Court ordered Bolsonaro to surrender his passports amid an investigation into alleged money laundering. He has not been charged and denies the allegations. The court gave him 24 hours to hand over the documents. At the time, Bolsonaro said he had no plans to leave the country and insisted he would stay to lead the opposition to his left-wing rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won Sunday's election. After he missed the deadline at around noon local time on Tuesday, Brazilian officials cancelled the documents.

When BBC Brasil contacted his lawyers shortly after the deadline expired, they insisted they were "completely in the dark" about his whereabouts. "We knew nothing about this, and we still have no information about what happened," one said. A police source told the BBC that federal officials were checking border crossings to establish whether Bolsonaro could have travelled to neighbouring Argentina. At the time, Argentine authorities said there was no record of the senator entering their country.

Bolsonaro has made no public statements since Monday afternoon, when he posted a video on social media. He was already under investigation over alleged corruption in the financing of a film about his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted of plotting a coup and is under house arrest. A separate inquiry concerns alleged links to a Brazilian lawyer accused of laundering more than $1bn through a fraud scheme. Police said earlier this month they had discovered that Bolsonaro had access to the bank accounts of a company owned by the lawyer. He denied doing business with the lawyer and described the passport confiscation as an attempt to intimidate him. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court also ordered police to examine his electoral campaign over alleged foreign funding.

The 45-year-old senator suffered a stinging defeat on Sunday when he was beaten by Lula in a presidential run-off he had been widely expected to win. His younger brother, Eduardo Bolsonaro, lives in Texas and was in Miami on Sunday, where he cast his vote and attended an election viewing event streamed to his followers. Opinion polls had put Flávio Bolsonaro narrowly ahead, and analysts noted that his first-round win on 4 October made victory in the run-off likely. After an early lead in the count, however, he was overtaken by the veteran incumbent, who became the first presidential candidate to overturn a first-round loss and win in the second round. Lula took 51.79 per cent of the vote to Bolsonaro's 48.21 per cent.

Despite trailing by 4.4 million votes, Bolsonaro has not conceded and has called for the election to be annulled. He argues that he was placed at a disadvantage because polling was extended by two hours on election day, even though the extension was requested by both his party and that of his rival. He described the extension, ordered by a Supreme Court justice, as a "dirty trick". The Liberal Party he represented has accepted the result, though it said the extension "merits investigation".