Brazil's Federal Police has flagged a coincidence between expenses recorded during the shooting of "Dark Horse", a biopic of former president Jair Bolsonaro, and transfers tied to congressional earmarks that reached the film's producer. The finding appears in a report included in the decision by Justice Flávio Dino of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Brazil's top court, that authorized Operation Make Up on Thursday (Sept. 10). Dino lifted the secrecy over the case files the same day, according to the news outlet g1. Earmarks, called "emendas parlamentares" in Brazil, are budget funds that individual lawmakers direct to projects and social organizations.
The operation is carrying out 49 search and seizure warrants in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Ceará and the Federal District. The main targets are federal deputy Mario Frias of the right-wing PL party, the film's screenwriter and executive producer, and producer Karina Gama. She presides over the Conhecer Brasil Institute (ICB) and the National Culture Academy (ANC) and owns Go Up Entertainment, the company behind the film, according to the state news agency Agência Brasil.
A coincidence in timing
According to the report, Go Up moved 19,033,071 reais between Nov. 10 and Dec. 30, 2025. The PF records that the film was shot in São Paulo between Oct. 20 and Dec. 7 of that year. Investigators suspect public money may have paid for stays at a high-end hotel, meals and payments to other production companies tied to the film.
"The temporal coincidence between the shoot and the period of the reported transactions (Nov. 10 to Dec. 30, 2025) draws attention, as does the nature of the expenses, which involve a high-end hotel and meals, in addition to expenses with production companies," the PF report says.
The ICB received 2 million reais from two earmarks authored by Frias. In the period under review, NTT Brasil, a company owned by Heric Dias, transferred 750,000 reais to Go Up. The amount is close to the 700,000 reais the institute paid to Dinâmica Editora and the Super Poder Educational Institute, companies in the same group. The PF says there are signs that money originally intended for the institute's contracts traveled that route to the producer.
Investigators also flagged a transfer of 645,400 reais sent by the deputy himself to Go Up. Data from Coaf, the financial intelligence agency, reproduced in Dino's decision show 8.9 million reais in credits and 10 million reais in debits in the company's accounts in the period. Among the senders are Marcello, a former political marketer who worked behind the scenes on Flávio Bolsonaro's pre-campaign, with 1 million reais, and Frias himself.
"Also noteworthy is the transfer of 645,400.00 reais to Go Up by federal deputy Mário Frias himself, whose monthly income reaches 44,008.52 reais, raising questions about the financial wherewithal to support the transfers made to Karina Gama's company in less than sixty days," the report says.
The decision and what comes next
In the decision, Dino said there was a concrete risk of evidence being hidden or destroyed. "The elements already produced reveal the existence of a sophisticated financial and operational structure designed to circulate funds among entities, companies and individuals linked to the investigated core, including reports of the use of companies based abroad, such as Go Up Entertainment LLC," he wrote, according to BBC News Brasil. Audits by the CGU, the federal control office, had already found problems in the choice of the ICB to receive the funds and in the execution of the projects. The PF is investigating embezzlement, document fraud, money laundering, criminal organization and procurement crimes, with movements estimated in the hundreds of millions of reais.
TV Globo contacted Frias and Gama's defense and received no reply, according to g1. In May, the deputy called the claim that he had steered earmarks to the film "absolutely false, devoid of any evidentiary basis and defamatory".
The case runs parallel to the inquiry into the 61 million reais that banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the defunct Banco Master, transferred to the production. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro admitted brokering the dealings, according to g1, and denies any wrongdoing. That inquiry is before Justice André Mendonça. According to UOL, Dino authorized Thursday's operation two days after a report by Mendonça. The PF will now examine the seized material, and the inquiry remains with Dino until it is concluded, when the Prosecutor General's Office will decide on charges.