GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AFP) — The plane that Argentine authorities say is carrying defeated right-wing presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro made a brief stop in Ecuador on Wednesday before flying on to an unknown destination, AFP journalists saw.

Bolsonaro, who lost Brazil’s runoff election to incumbent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday, boarded a flight to Ecuador after arriving in Argentina on Tuesday night, the latter country’s National Directorate of Migration said on X.

The 45-year-old entered Argentina “with valid travel documents and no legal impediment”, it added, despite a court order banning his exit.

Bolsonaro, his wife and two daughters then boarded “a private flight operated by the company Baires Fly SA bound for the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador”, the government agency said.

According to data from the Flightradar24 website, the plane took off just after midnight (0300 GMT) on Wednesday from the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazu in the country’s northeast.

That plane landed in Guayaquil shortly before 4:00 am (0900 GMT) before taking off again less than an hour later, AFP journalists and Flightradar24 data confirmed.

Bolsonaro’s final destination is unknown, but the FlightAware website said the plane was headed to Miami.

Baires Fly did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.

The US State Department said it would issue visas to the senator and his family.

US media earlier reported, citing anonymous sources, that Bolsonaro had arrived in the United States on Tuesday.

Brazil’s Supreme Court banned Bolsonaro from leaving the country and ordered him to hand over his passports.

He is under investigation for alleged corruption and money laundering, and with his election loss, is also set to lose parliamentary immunity.

A police source told AFP that Bolsonaro’s Brazilian and diplomatic passports had been cancelled, but the senator has held Italian nationality since 2023, according to an Italian parliamentary document seen by AFP.

Reports of Bolsonaro’s exit from Brazil came as a shock to his political camp.

“We still don’t have any news about his whereabouts,” Bolsonaro’s campaign manager Rogerio Marinho told reporters in Brasilia on Tuesday.

“I received a text message from him this morning, where he said he would let some time pass today and then would talk with us, and that was it,” he said.

“That was the only communication we had.”

Bolsonaro said in a video posted on Instagram a day earlier that he “never had any intention of leaving the country” and the ban on his exit was a scare tactic.

Lula, who won the election with 51.8 per cent of the vote, called fleeing the country a “shameful” act.

“A person who sneaks out of their country must have something to hide,” he said in Brasilia during his 81st birthday celebration.

Following his loss, Bolsonaro said he would seek to annul the result, citing the decision to extend polling hours over transportation difficulties that prevented some citizens from voting.

Lula had requested the extension, as had Bolsonaro over bad weather in parts of the country.

US President Donald Trump, a close ally of Flavio’s father and Brazil’s former leader Jair Bolsonaro, said that the elections were “rigged”.

Bolsonaro seemed like the more likely winner after he came out on top in the first round of elections earlier this month.

He campaigned on a pledge to liberate his father, who is under house arrest for coup-plotting after his own electoral loss to Lula in 2022.

Jair Bolsonaro never conceded defeat and left the country on the eve of his rival’s inauguration, only returning to Brazil three months later.