Missing Rio boys tortured and killed for stealing bird, say police
Source: The Guardian
Missing Rio boys tortured and killed for stealing bird, say police
Members of Red Command drug faction accused of crime that caused outcry across Brazil
Tom Phillips Latin America correspondent
Fri 10 Dec 2021 13.16 GMT
Nearly a year after three young boys vanished near their homes in Rio de Janeiro’s rundown northern sprawl, police have accused members of the city’s largest drug faction of murdering the children in reprisal for stealing an ornamental bird.
The boys – aged nine, 11 and 12 – disappeared on the afternoon of 27 December 2020 after leaving their homes in the Morro do Castelar favela to play. They were last seen in eerie security footage showing them walking towards a local street market.
What became of those children – Lucas, Alexandre and Fernando – has remained a mystery despite a nationwide outcry and a major police investigation. On Thursday, however, investigators claimed they had finally cracked the case, having discovered that the boys had been abducted by members of the Red Command (CV) faction that controlled their community.
Homicide chief Uriel Alcântara said the children had been tortured and subjected to a vicious punishment beating, in which one of them had died, for allegedly stealing a bird belonging to the uncle of a local gangster. “They beat up the children, went over the top and ended up killing one of them – and so they decide the solution is to execute the other two,” Alcântara alleged.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/10/rio-gangsters-tortured-and-murdered-missing-boys-say-police