Documents from Brazil's Federal Police and the federal prosecutor's office (PGR), released by the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) on Friday (11), show that former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro advised in a message how money for "Dark Horse", a biopic of former president Jair Bolsonaro, should be managed and moved in the United States. In the text, he called sending funds from Brazil for the film "problematic" and said the ideal would be for the money to already be in the US.
According to G1, a PGR opinion signed in July by prosecutor general Paulo Gonet cleared the opening of the STF inquiry into the film's transnational financing. Eduardo, who lives in the United States, is one of the targets of the investigation. Investigators obtained a screenshot of a conversation attributed to him with instructions on how to operationalize sending the money abroad. The document does not say who received the message.
"The ideal would be to have the funds already in the US. From the US to the US it is easy. If the Brazilian company sending to the US does not have that large budget we mentioned as an example, it will be problematic, the transfers will have to be made little by little and this would take about 6 months, we calculate."
In the same message, Eduardo suggests sending "as much as possible" through the current system and offers Altieris Santana, identified by investigators as director of Havengate Development Fund, a Texas-based fund that held the money and passed it to producer Go Up Entertainment. Folha de S.Paulo reports that the documents also indicate Eduardo acted as manager of the money raised for the film.
A US$ 24 million deal and a plea agreement
The investigation found that in December 2024 publicist Thiago Miranda sent Daniel Vorcaro, former owner of Banco Master, a draft "Production Financing Agreement" for "Capitão do Povo", the film's earlier name, foreseeing US$ 24 million in 14 installments. International transfers totaled US$ 12.3 million in 2025 and were made by Entre Investimentos, a company owned by businessman Antônio Carlos Freixo Júnior, known as "Mineiro". His plea agreement with the PGR was approved on Wednesday (9) by Justice André Mendonça, who oversees the case at the STF.
In its filing to the court, the Federal Police wrote that the amounts are "significantly divergent" from available benchmarks in Brazil's audiovisual market and that the gap reinforces the need to investigate "the economic viability and the true purpose of the operation". The police lists points to clarify, among them the origin of the funds, the function of the Havengate fund, the final beneficiaries and the role of Eduardo and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, a presidential candidate in the October election, in structuring, collecting and directing the money. Flávio denied wrongdoing in May, in an interview with GloboNews: "All the resources that were put into this fund, which is specifically for the production of the film, were used entirely to make the film."
The "Dark Horse" inquiry continues before Mendonça at the STF, and Flávio asked on Friday for all documents on the film to be declassified. Separately, the court is ruling until September 18 on the defense appeal against Eduardo's sentence of 4 years and 2 months in prison for coercion in the case on the 2023 coup attempt. The justice presiding, Alexandre de Moraes, voted to reject the appeal and uphold the sentence.