Brazilian Senate hopeful Flávio Bolsonaro denied wrongdoing in a case reported as a request for millions of reais from jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro, a development that could complicate Bolsonaro’s expected presidential bid in October against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The allegations surfaced after The Intercept Brazil published voice messages in which Bolsonaro asked Vorcaro for 61 million reais, or about $12 million, in connection with a film titled “The Dark Horse.” Vorcaro, a former CEO of Banco Master, has been at the center of a broader corruption probe involving high-ranking officials in Brazil.
The Intercept Brazil said Bolsonaro sought the money from Vorcaro to finance the production of the film, which Bolsonaro said he is making about his father, jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro. The site reported that Bolsonaro asked for more after an initial amount was paid, according to the voice-message material.
Bolsonaro’s denial came as the case already fed scrutiny into his political trajectory, where the issue could become an additional obstacle to a campaign built around his identity as the son of the former president. In his statement, Bolsonaro rejected any implication of wrongdoing and said the film effort did not involve public funds or any exchange for illegal benefits.
“Our case is of a son seeking PRIVATE sponsorship for a PRIVATE film about his father’s story. No public money,” Bolsonaro said in the statement. He added: “I did not offer any (illegal) advantages in exchange. I did not have private encounters. I did not intermediate business with the government. I did not receive money.”
The report also said Bolsonaro had previously denied any association with Vorcaro. Hours before the messages became public, Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia that he had no association with Vorcaro, and he made a similar denial in March after Brazilian media reported that his phone number had been found on a cellphone seized by federal police from Vorcaro.
According to the voice messages described in the report, Bolsonaro told Vorcaro that he was not comfortable asking for the banker’s money when a September message was recorded. In that message, Bolsonaro said “the movie is in a very decisive moment,” describing payments that were late and expressing worry about producing the opposite result of what “we dreamed for this movie.” The report also said Bolsonaro told Vorcaro that people needed to be paid connected to the film, including actor Jim Caviezel and director Cyrus Nowrasteh.
In the messages, Bolsonaro also described the timing of financing as tied to the presidential campaign’s final stretch. In a voice message in November, the report said Bolsonaro told Vorcaro, “Don’t even think of us not paying (actor) Jim Caviezel, Cyrus (Nowrasteh, the film’s director). People of a high name in American and world cinema.” The report said Bolsonaro added that the campaign period meant they could not hesitate or skip commitments, and Vorcaro responded that he would pay the next day.
Vorcaro was arrested in March and has since tried to reach a plea bargain with authorities, the report said. Banco Master, where Vorcaro previously served as CEO, was shut down by Brazil’s Central Bank in November, according to the report. Brazilian federal police estimate the bank’s total fraud at approximately 12 billion reais, while the case remains under investigation by federal police and Brazil’s Supreme Court.
The report said Vorcaro is accused, among other things, of defrauding Banco Master’s 800,000 clients, including state government pension funds, out of hundreds of millions of dollars by convincing them to make “shady investments.” It also said that since the scandal broke, Bolsonaro and allies have alleged without evidence that the matter should be pinned on Lula. Earlier this week, it said, a former chief-of-staff for Jair Bolsonaro, Sen. Ciro Nogueira, denied media reports that he received regular payments from Vorcaro.
Political consultant Thomas Traumann said the revelations could negatively impact Bolsonaro’s campaign shortly before his Liberal Party holds its convention to put him on the ballot. Traumann said Bolsonaro is an “unknown politician” whose biggest asset is being the son of the former president, and that a scandal involving a banker under police investigation for fraud could force Brazil’s opposition to consider changing its candidate.
Lula allies in Congress said they will push for a congressional investigation into the connection between Flávio Bolsonaro and Vorcaro. After the revelations emerged, Flávio Bolsonaro and other key figures in his party met in Brasilia, and the senator left the meeting in the evening without speaking to journalists waiting outside.