Defeated Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro has arrived in the United States, sources told the BBC, hours after Brazil's Supreme Court had his passports cancelled on Tuesday when he missed a deadline to hand them over.

Source: BBC News

Sources told BBC Brasil and BBC Mundo that the 45-year-old senator met his younger brother Eduardo Bolsonaro in Florida. His exact travel route from Brazil is unclear, as is whether anyone accompanied him or whether he intends to stay in the United States. Neither brother could be reached directly for comment.

A senior US official confirmed that the State Department would issue visas to Flávio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States, the BBC reported. Eduardo Bolsonaro lives in Texas and was in Miami on Sunday, where he cast his vote.

The passport order he defied

On Monday the Supreme Court gave Flávio Bolsonaro 24 hours to hand his passports to police as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering. He has not been charged and denies the allegations. At the time he said he had no plans to leave Brazil and would stay to lead the opposition to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who won Sunday's run-off.

After he missed the deadline, his lawyers told BBC Brasil they were "completely in the dark" about his whereabouts. "We knew nothing about this, and we still have no information about what happened," one lawyer said. Federal officers checked border crossings to establish whether he had travelled to neighbouring Argentina, a police source told BBC Brasil; Argentine authorities told the BBC there was no record of him entering through any border crossing.

Lula reacted at an event in Brasília marking his 81st birthday, calling the act of leaving Brazil "shameful", The Guardian reported, in reporting carried by QNC News. Lawmakers from Lula's Workers' Party want the senator detained and have petitioned the Supreme Court for his arrest, along with an Interpol Red Notice, that reporting said.

Source: The Guardian via QNC News

Investigations and the election he lost

One inquiry concerns alleged links to a Brazilian lawyer accused of laundering more than $1 billion through a fraud scheme — yaani about $100 crore in the same units. Police said earlier this month that Flávio Bolsonaro had access to the bank accounts of a company owned by the lawyer. He denied doing business with the lawyer and described the confiscation of his passports as an attempt to intimidate him. He was already under investigation for alleged corruption over the financing of a film about his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, and on Tuesday the Supreme Court also ordered police to examine his electoral campaign over alleged foreign funding, the BBC reported.

Lula took 51.79 percent in the run-off against 48.21 percent for Flávio Bolsonaro, a margin of 4.4 million votes — yaani 44 lakh votes. Flávio Bolsonaro has not conceded and has called for the result to be annulled, arguing that a two-hour extension of polling on election day put him at a disadvantage; the extension was requested by both his Liberal Party and Lula's party and was ordered by a Supreme Court justice.