Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has flown to Miami after losing the country’s presidential election on Sunday.

His arrival in Florida ends days of confusion over his whereabouts, after he was reported to have travelled to Argentina, and then prematurely reported to have already entered the US on Tuesday.

The US has said it would grant visas to Bolsonaro and his family, who travelled with him. Brazil cancelled his passport, after he failed to surrender it to police, due to an ongoing criminal investigation. He has denied any wrongdoing.

In his first statement since leaving Brazil, Bolsonaro cast himself as the “leader” of the country, and thanked America for granting entry to his family.

Newly reelected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has criticised the departure, saying “those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear”.

In a statement, distributed by the right-wing Brazilian influencer Paulo Figueiredo, Bolsonaro thanked both the presidents of Argentina and the US, and the American public “who share the same values ​​as the good people of my own country”.

“It was never my intention to leave my homeland, but I know exactly where this is heading,” he said.

He repeated unsubstantiated allegations of “electoral fraud” which he said allowed a “mathematical impossibility” to occur in the election.

He called himself a victim of a coup d’état and political persecution, and said his travel to the US was to protect his family.

“I want to tell not only my 60 million voters, but the entire Brazilian people, that I am the elected president,” he alleged.

“The criminals who stole Brazil’s election are part of a criminal organization that has established a tyranny.”

After Bolsonaro won the first round of Brazil’s election, Lula won the second round by more than four million votes, which was attributed to significantly higher turnout, and swaying more undecided voters.

The result was confirmed by the president of Brazil’s top electoral court, himself appointed by Jair Bolsonaro. He said that an extension to voting hours did not impact the count or result.

Speculation about Bolsonaro’s whereabouts was first triggered by a report on an Argentine news site, which claimed that he had crossed the land border between Brazil and Argentina and then boarded a private plane en route to the US.

Brazilian police took the rumours seriously. Early on Tuesday, they checked border crossings but found no evidence that Bolsonaro had left the country, and Argentine officials said they had no reports of him crossing.

For a little while, it seemed like Bolsonaro may just be keeping an uncharacteristically low profile after being unexpectedly beaten by his left-wing rival in the presidential run-off vote on Sunday.

When he failed to surrender his passports in time to meet a 24-hour deadline, Brazilian authorities cancelled the documents and ordered police to make checks at border posts.

With Bolsonaro’s lawyers saying they did not know where he was, speculation quickly grew again that he might have left the country.