Brazil's Flávio Bolsonaro Faces Supreme Court Probe Over Banker's Film Payments

Brazil's Supreme Court has unsealed documents showing that Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate, is under investigation over payments of 61 million reais (about $12 million) he received from a banker at the centre of a widening corruption scandal.

The money was intended to finance a film titled "The Dark Horse" about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The senator has denied any wrongdoing and said during a campaign event in Manaus on Friday that he was seeking private investment for the movie.

The banker, Daniel Vorcaro, is the former chief executive of the shuttered Banco Master. Arrested in March, he is accused of defrauding many of the bank's 800,000 clients, including several state government pension funds, of hundreds of millions of dollars by steering them into questionable investments. The affair has drawn in several senior officials.

According to the documents, Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça opened the investigation into the senator in July at the request of Brazil's federal police. In recent weeks, allies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have accused Mendonça, who was appointed to the court by Jair Bolsonaro, of shielding the senator from scrutiny.

Mendonça unsealed the papers at the request of Chief Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, who sought to ease a political crisis inside the court and bring transparency to the sprawling Banco Master probe.

Federal police estimate the bank's total fraud at roughly 12 billion reais ($2.3 billion). The Central Bank shut down Banco Master, whose assets had topped $16 billion, in November.

The investigation threatens to complicate Sen. Bolsonaro's presidential bid. The first round of voting is scheduled for Oct. 4, and he is locked in a tight race with Lula. The allegations first surfaced publicly in May.