Brazilian presidential candidate Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro is under a Supreme Court investigation for receiving millions of dollars from a disgraced banker to finance a movie about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro.
Brazil’s top court late Thursday unsealed several documents that show Sen. Bolsonaro, Lula’s primary opponent, is under investigation for receiving 61 million reais ($12 million) from a banker at the center of a corruption scandal to produce a movie titled “The Dark Horse."
The investigation threatens to undermine Sen. Bolsonaro’s bid for the presidency, with the first round of elections slated for Oct. 4. The senator is locked in a tight race with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The allegations first became public in May. Sen. Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing. He insisted Friday during a campaign event in Manaus that he was seeking private investment for a movie.
The banker, Daniel Vorcaro, is the former CEO of the shuttered Banco Master. 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.
Supreme Court Justice André Mendonca opened an investigation into Sen. Bolsonaro in July at the request of Brazil's federal police, the documents show. In recent weeks, Lula's allies have accused Mendonca, an appointee of Jair Bolsonaro to the court, of shielding Sen. Bolsonaro from investigations.
Mendonca unsealed the documents at the request of Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, who sought to ease a political crisis within the court and bring transparency into the sprawling Banco Master probe.
Brazil’s federal police estimate the bank’s total fraud at approximately 12 billion reais ($2.3 billion).
Brazil’s Central Bank shut down Banco Master, whose assets topped $16 billion, in November.
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