PF weighs asset freeze and other measures as Willer Tomaz case spreads to Flávio Bolsonaro and bets probes

Brazil’s Federal Police is considering asking the Supreme Federal Court (STF) for a freeze on assets and funds belonging to senator Flávio Bolsonaro, after he was said to have fled to the United States. The same playbook has already been used by STF justice Alexandre de Moraes against businessman and lawyer Willer Tomaz, in a case tied to alleged money laundering and foreign exchange evasion through sports betting platforms.

1. The case sits with Alexandre de Moraes at the STF and revolves around a suspected scheme using bets platforms to move money and evade foreign exchange rules. Willer Tomaz, described as a friend of Flávio Bolsonaro and in the US since August, has already had his bank, tax, and currency secrecy lifted, with movable and immovable assets seized and blocked up to R$ 6 billion.
2. The Federal Police has signaled that a similar precautionary measure could be requested against Flávio Bolsonaro. Investigators had already asked Moraes, on Sunday after the second round of the elections, to act on what they called a “concrete risk of fleeing the national territory”, but they proposed passport surrender and a ban on contact with Willer Tomaz instead of preventive detention.
3. After Flávio allegedly failed to comply with the court order, the PF is now weighing whether to seek his detention. Investigators also carried out steps on Tuesday to trace the route he allegedly used to leave Brazil for the United States. They say the pressure tactic is a known one in investigations: “financial suffocation,” meant to interrupt the alleged criminal activity.
4. The US side matters here because investigators believe the measure may have limited practical effect. According to the text, the government of Donald Trump has already said it authorized his stay in the US. If Moraes orders preventive detention, Flávio’s name could be placed on Interpol’s red notice list, which does not mean automatic arrest; the authorities in the country where he is staying would still decide whether to act.
5. There is also a political-judicial layer to the case: PT deputies filed petitions on Tuesday asking Moraes to put Flávio in Interpol’s diffusion system and requested a statement from the Procurator-General’s Office. Separately, people close to the family said Eduardo Bolsonaro helped arrange the departure with US authorities; Eduardo lives in Texas and traveled to Florida with his wife and children to meet his brother.

For payments and risk teams, the interesting part is not the politics. It is the enforcement pattern: Brazilian investigators are explicitly treating betting-related flows as a channel for alleged laundering and FX evasion, and they are pairing that theory with aggressive financial restraints rather than waiting for a criminal case to run its full course.