Flávio Bolsonaro, the presidential candidate for the PL party, has outsourced the disclosure of financial records for the film Dark Horse, a biopic about his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, to the movie's production company, Go Up Entertainment, without fulfilling his promise of transparency about a transfer made through an American investment fund, Havengate, that helped finance the project. The report comes from Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.
The controversy began in May, when the news outlet The Intercept published messages exchanged between Flávio and Daniel Vorcaro, then the owner of Banco Master, in which the senator asked for money to fund the production. According to that report, the total amount negotiated reached 134 million reais (about $25 million), of which Vorcaro actually paid 61 million reais. The funds reportedly moved through a Vorcaro-linked company, Entre Investimentos e Participações, to Havengate, a fund based in Texas and controlled by Paulo Calixto, a lawyer for Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of Flávio's brothers. The episode prompted Brazil's Federal Police to open an investigation into whether part of the film's money covered Eduardo Bolsonaro's expenses while he lived in the United States.
On May 19, surrounded by PL lawmakers, Flávio told reporters he had asked the production company and the fund to organize, within 30 days, a transparent accounting of the investment's expenses. Days earlier he had said he could release the financing contract if his lawyers allowed it, claiming a confidentiality clause had kept him, back in March, from admitting he knew Vorcaro. By late June, when contacted by Folha, his campaign said Go Up had already disclosed its accounts, but the statement released by the producer offered no details on how the money reached the American fund.
Private expert says he never traced the US fund's money
According to a report by newspaper O Globo, republished by news site Poder360, the private forensic expert hired by Go Up to review the film's finances, Anisio Castelo Branco, said he only examined the funds actually spent by the producer and was not authorized to audit Havengate. "I don't know how much was sent from Brazil to the US, or even if it was sent, because I'm not investigating the fund, I don't speak for the fund, I'm not part of Havengate," he told the newspaper, adding that information about the fund's capital is confidential and fell outside the scope of his work.
Federal Police consider that tracing effort essential to determining whether the film was used to divert funds, according to reporter Eduardo Gonçalves of O Globo. The expert's report was submitted as part of a separate legal case investigating alleged misuse of congressional earmarks in the film, but it contains no information about the money's path abroad, the newspaper said. Eduardo Bolsonaro denies receiving money from Vorcaro through the fund, and Flávio maintains all the money was used "entirely" for the film's production.
On August 20, Flávio described the Dark Horse case as a "closed chapter" and said he no longer had any obligation to discuss the financing, arguing that the accounting commissioned by the producer had already leaked to the press. Folha notes that, despite that statement, his original commitment to transparency about the American fund's transfer to the film remains unfulfilled.