On a film set built to bring the life of former president Jair Bolsonaro to the big screen, with American actor Jim Caviezel in the lead role, the most talked-about scene is now unfolding far from the cameras. According to the newspaper Valor Econômico, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), the candidate facing President Lula in this month's presidential runoff, asked banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the failed Banco Master, for R$ 134 million (about US$ 24 million) to finance Dark Horse, the movie about his father, still slated for release this year.
The issue dominated the first segment of Sunday's (18) presidential debate on Band, when Lula repeatedly pressed his rival about where the money for the production came from. Vorcaro, whose bank was liquidated amid a sweeping fraud investigation, is in prison.
The money trail
Audio messages and WhatsApp conversations exchanged between December 2024 and November 2025, revealed by The Intercept Brasil in May and confirmed at the time by Valor with two sources close to the investigations, show Flávio negotiating directly with Vorcaro. Payment receipts and a control spreadsheet shared between the banker and his allies indicate that US$ 10.6 million was transferred out of a planned US$ 23.9 million, equivalent at the time to R$ 61 million out of R$ 134 million.
The money left Entre Investimentos, a company Federal Police describe as part of Vorcaro's web of businesses, and went to the Havengate Development Fund, based in Texas and legally represented by lawyer Paulo Calixto, who also defends former congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the senator's brother, now living in the United States. According to Banco Master's income tax filing obtained by Valor, the bank paid R$ 2.3 million to Entre in 2025, information first reported by columnist Malu Gaspar of O Globo.
Federal Police inquiry documents, detailed by Jornal Nacional, show that in December 2024 Flávio met Vorcaro at a meeting brokered by businessman Thiago Miranda, bringing along federal deputy Mário Frias, who conceived the film project. A week later, Miranda sent the banker a file named "Acordo-Financiamento-da-producao" (production financing agreement). The contract with production company Go Up provided for a total investment of US$ 24 million in 14 installments, and investigators have so far traced seven payments totaling more than US$ 12 million, made between February and September 2025, worth almost R$ 70 million at the time.
Investigations and defense
The inquiry is examining whether Flávio and others committed corruption, illegal currency remittance and money laundering. Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça ratified the plea bargain of Antônio Carlos Freixo Junior, known as Mineiro, the owner of Entre Investimentos, who detailed the payments in testimony; one police suspicion is that part of the money is bankrolling Eduardo Bolsonaro in the United States. On a separate front, Justice Flávio Dino is investigating whether congressional budget earmarks were funneled to the production. Police also found that Go Up paid at least four of Mário Frias's credit card bills, totaling nearly R$ 137,000.
"What happened was a son seeking private sponsorship for a private film about his own father's story. Zero public money."
Flávio has stood by the explanation he gave in May, when the audio first surfaced, and insists there is nothing irregular about the financing. The film is still promised for release this year, but before it reaches darkened theaters, Dark Horse has already found an audience no producer plans for: the Supreme Court inquiries in which every installment wired to the Texas fund is now being examined, a storyline likely to outlast the closing credits.