In the third segment here, the arrest of an Iran-born drug-dealer, convicted and sentenced in the U.K., found operating nightclubs in the Barra da Tijuca neighborhood of Rio.
I’m going way down South
Where a man can be free …
–Jimi Hendrix doing “Hey, Joe”
In one of the calls traced by police, police agents from the 31th Military Police Battalion (BPM) in Barra asked Sandra for “some little kids” for a party. The call was reported made from the BPM barracks, on a line registered to the account of the state public safety secretariate. The room in which that telephone was installed was pinpointed by police. It was a room reserved for police in charge of sealed investigations. … Before being transferred to the governor’s palace, Adelino worked out of the 31st BPM (Barra da Tijuca). “According to police internal affairs, a complaint received by the battalion early in the year also mentioned his name. But the investigations never went anywhere and he went on to work at the Palace,” Delma recounts.
PM da guarda do Palácio é preso por aliciar menores (G1/Globo): “Military policeman from the Guanabara Palace guard is arrested for sexual exploitation of minors.”
And false imprisonment. And pimping — that expressive term, rufianismo.
Again, NMM makes a point of headlining such cases with a level of crudity appropriate to the nature of the deeds alleged. We confess to this little rhetorical trick, this appeal to pathos. On the other hand, we have nieces and nephews, so we would like you to also believe that our repugnance at the idea of cops who imprison and sell children for other people to fuck is actually very sincere and heartfelt.
The palace guard was also a militia member from the Recreio das Bandeirantes, prosecutors say, now leading a similar group in the swanky tourist zone. The Recreio was where Inspector Tostes was assassinated. For more recent newsflow on Rio militias — the O Globo newspaper has now taken to calling them seguranças [security guards], apparently — see also
Recently, some out-of-towners in for the Pan-American Games — San Francisco, California police officers, to be exact — were reportedly shaken down at gunpoint by PMs outside the Help! nightclub on the ritzy Copacabana beachside (Rio: “San Francisco Cops Report Shakedown”).
You know, the Help! nightclub. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Officers Starsky & Hutch were leaving unescorted, as it were, it seems. And no one likes a looky-loo.
I hesitate to pass along street-level scuttlebutt on this topic, but I believe I have from time to time tactfully invited you to bear in mind the question, “Who runs the non-narco vice in Rio de Janeiro?” Just to keep your eyes peeled for future data points that might bear on that question, once properly reality-checked.
And I have personally witnessed the sex tourists working the Rio beaches. Ugh. Next time, I am filming some of this action. (Should I blur the faces of the simpering boy-hooker-cruising German freak we watched from our Ipanema barraco on our last trip? That is a real ethical conundrum. MSNBC doesn’t when it does its honey-trap reports on pedophiles who lurk in chatrooms.) I know a nice hotel with reasonable rates and a beach view where you could do this from a discrete distance.
Could this police blotter item constitute a piece in that puzzle? Do you think? 1 + 1 + 1 + … = x?
See also
O Ministério Público mandou prender na manhã desta sexta-feira (10) o policial militar Adelino Correia, de 37 anos, por aliciamento de menores. O cabo chegava para trabalhar por volta das 7h no Palácio Guanabara, sede do governo do Rio. Ele trabalha na guarda palaciana, nas guaritas do palácio.
The Public Ministry [state prosecutor’s office] today issued an order for the arrest of military police corporal Adelino Correia, 37, for sexual molestation of minors. The corporal was coming in to work around 7 am at the governor’s official residence, Guanabara Palace[, when he was arrested.] He works for the palace guard, manning the palace sentry posts.
Adelino foi denunciado pelos crimes de exploração sexual infantil, rufianismo e cárcere privado. Além dele, os promotores Márcio Morthé e Delma Acioly também pediram a prisão preventiva de Sandra Lopes Arruda. Os dois são acusados de comandar uma rede de prostituição na Barra da Tijuca, na Zona Oeste do Rio.
Adelino was charged with sexual exploitation of minors, [pimping] and false imprisonment. Along with the corporal, prosecutors Morthé and Acioly also requested the preventive detention of Sandra Lopoes Arruda. The two are accused of commanding a prostitution ring in the Barra da Tijuca, in the Western District of Rio de Janeiro.
“Child prostitution is a sickness without a cure,” wrote Eduardo Carvalho of the Horace Greeley-colorful Última Hora News recently.
Wikipedia on the Barra:
Today, the region has established itself as the most important of the city’s middle- and upper-class real estate attraction area, which adopted a lifestyle inspired by the American suburbs, based in blocks of flats and townhouses, cars and shopping centres. The resulting employment opportunities also attracted favelas. Due to the Rio de Janeiro city downtown real estate degradation and plastering, Barra also attracted an increasing number of companies, most of them of the petroleum sector.
Wikipedia entries on Brazilian urban neighborhoods tend to be written by (1) university geography students and (2) real estate industry flacks. It is not hard to tell the two approaches to encyclopedic writing style apart.
“Inspired by the American suburbs,” for example? I grew up in a fairly nice American suburb, you know (somewhat on the wrong side of the tracks, mind you — sort of a “Slums of Beverly Hills” experience).
When was the last time you, upscale American suburbanite, picked up a teenaged hooker to go with your Weight Watcher frozen dinners in the parking lot of the Whole Foods on your way to the country club? Without getting arrested and featured in the “outing the johns” column of the crusading local paper?
Consenting-adult hookers with beepers and a purse full of condoms, maybe. We are not prudes here. But child sex-slaves handcuffed to their beds? Working the parking lot of the Wal-Mart or the “enchanted kingdom”?
There are several shopping malls in the neighborhood, the most notable being the BarraShopping, the New York City Center and the Via Parque Shopping. There are also smaller-sized shopping malls, such as Barra Square and Barra Point. Most of the cinemas and restaurants of the neighborhood are located inside the shopping malls. An amusement park, called Parque Terra Encantada, is located in the neighborhood. Barra da Tijuca hosts many supermarkets, including Wal-Mart, Extra, Bon Marché, Carrefour and Makro.
Holy Christ on a crutch.
Is that a mall rat or a sex-slave? Next time you are in the Barra, scan the shiny young faces in the crowd and ask yourself this question. If it turns out you can buy coerced sex-labor at that New York City Center? We New Yorkers ought to sue the bastards into changing their name.
We don’t need that kind of thing associated with our municipal brand. We are not the shining city on the hill ourselves, sure. But West-Side Highway crack whoredom ain’t what it used to be, either.
Os policiais do grupo de apoio às promotorias de justiça (GAP) suspeitaram que algumas das garotas que faziam programa na Avenida Sernambetiba eram menores. Pediram a quebra do sigilo telefônico de duas delas e identificaram os suspeitos.
The special police group in support of prosecutors (the GAP) suspected that some of the girls “running programs” on Sernambetiba Avenue were minors. They petitioned to break the telephone privacy of two of them and in this way identified the suspects.
Além de escutas telefônicas, determinadas pela juíza Ivone Caetano, do Juizado da Infância e da Juventude, a polícia filmou algumas delas se prostituindo. A suspeita Sandra, sem perceber que era gravada, fez ameaças para que as jovens não parassem de trabalhar mesmo com chuva.
Besides the telephone intercepts, authorized by Judge Ivone Caetano of [the Child and Youth Protection Court], the police filmed some of the girls prostituting themselves. Sandra, the second suspect arrested today, without knowing she was being filmed, threatened the young persons so they would keep on working even though it was raining.
Ligações feitas de telefone da Secretaria de Segurança Pública
Phone calls made from a line at the Secretary of Public Security
Numa das ligações rastreadas pela polícia, policiais do 31º BPM (Barra) pedem a Sandra “umas criancinhas” para uma festa. O telefonema teria sido dado do próprio quartel, numa linha registrada na conta da Secretaria estadual de Segurança Pública.
In one of the calls traced by police, police agents from the 31th Military Police Battalion (BPM) in Barra asked Sandra for “some little girls” for a party. The call was reportedly made from the BPM barracks, on a line registered to the account of the state public safety secretariate.
A sala em que ficaria o telefone foi identificada pela polícia e era reservada a policiais responsáveis por investigações sigilosas.
The room in which that telephone was installed was pinpointed by police. It was a room reserved for police in charge of sealed investigations.
Em outra ligação, Sandra acerta levar mais “criancinhas” para um campeonato de golfe no dia 13 no Itanhagá Golf Club. Um terceiro telefonema mostra Adelino aplicando multa de R$ 300 reais a uma das meninas que teria cobrado muito pouco por fazer sexo oral sem camisinha num cliente.
In another call, Sandra arranges to bring more “little kiddies” to a golf championship to be held on August 13 at the Itanhagá Golf Club. A third call shows Adelino fining one of the girls R$300 for having undercharged a client for oral sex without a condom.
Ipês in bloom on the Itanhagá Golf Club’s lovely greens.
That is nearly a full month’s minimum salary, by the way.
Segundo o MP, Adelino já fez parte de uma milícia no Recreio dos Bandeirantes e hoje estaria a frente de um grupo clandestino na área da Tijuquinha, comunidade carente próxima à Barra, onde Sandra foi presa. Ela mantinha as crianças em cárcere privado.
According to the MP, Adelino was once part of a militia in the Recreio dos Bandeirantes and currently is thought to be heading a clandestine group of this kind in Tijuquinha [“Little Tijuca”], a poor community adjacent to the Barra da Tijuca, where Sandra was arrested. She was holding the children in unlawful captivity.
O casal, preso temporariamente por 30 dias, pode pegar até 18 anos de prisão. Ainda sem advogado, Adelino presta depoimento na 16ª DP (Barra da Tijuca) e deverá ser encaminhado ao Batalhão Especial Prisional (BEP).
The couple, who will be held in temporary custody for 30 days, could get up to 18 years in prison. Still without a lawyer, Adelino is giving a statement at the 16th Precinct (Barra da Tijuca) and is due to be sent to the Special Prison Battalion (BEP).
That is, because he is a military policeman, he may be processed and tried by a military, not a civil, criminal authority.
Prostituta devia R$ 19 mil a PM preso
Prostitute owed the arrested policeman R$19,000.
That is, about 50 months of minimum salary. Talk about your crushing debt service.
Na casa de Sandra, foi encontrada uma jovem de 18 anos mantida em cárcere privado. “Ela contou que trabalhava para A. desde quando ainda era menor de idade. Disse que ainda que deve a A. R$ 19 mil, em multas que ele cobra quando acredita que um cliente não foi satisfeito”, detalha a promotora Delma Acioly.
At Sandra’s house, a young woman, 18, was found being held captive. “She said she had worked for Adelino since she was still a minor. She said she still owed him R$19,000 in fines that he charges when he believes a client is not satisfied,” said prosecutor Acioly.
Segundo a promotora, as escutas telefônicas comprovam que outras meninas trabalham para Adelino e cada uma chega a ganhar R$ 600 por dia. “Quem tinha dívida, não recebia porque ele alegava que o dinheiro todo era para pagá-lo”, diz Delma.
According to the prosecutor, the telephone intercepts prove that other girls worked for Adelino and that each of them earned up to R$600 a day. “If they had a debt, they did not get it because he said all the money was to go toward repaying him,” Delma said.
Antes de ser transferido para o Palácio do governo, A. trabalhava no 31º BPM (Barra). “Segundo a corregedoria da polícia, uma denúncia ao batalhão no início do ano já apontava o nome dele. Mas as investigações não avançaram e ele foi trabalhar no Palácio”, conta Delma.
Before being transferred to the governor’s palace, Adelino worked out of the 31st BPM (Barra da Tijuca). “According to police internal affairs, a complaint received by the battalion early in the year also mentioned his name. But the investigations never went anywhere and he went on to work at the Palace,” Delma recounts.
As investigações começaram em meados de julho por meio de uma denúncia recebida pelo Ministério Público.
Investigations began in mid-July after the Public Ministry received a complaint.
What are those gringos smoking?
And who are they smoking it with?
Disclosure: I am permitting myself to get very, very indignant here.
I have nieces, you know.
Extremely lovely and lively ones.
File under “hog heavens of the hard men, foreseeable consequences of.”
And this follow-up [4 pm EST]:
O MP ainda investiga outros pontos de prostituição na orla da praia da Barra da Tijuca, que seriam controlados por outras pessoas. Segundo a promotora Delma Moreira, o policial militar Adelino Correia cobrava pagamento de garotas que queriam fazer programa em frente ao posto 5 da praia. A promotoria informou também que algumas das mulheres eram obrigadas a morar em imóvel na Rua Machado de Assis, na comunidade conhecida como Tijuquinha, na Barra da Tijuca, Zona Oeste do Rio.
The MP is also looking into other prostitution hot spots on the beachfront of the Barra da Tijuca, reportedly controlled by others. According to prosecutor Delma Moreira, military police corporal Adelino Correia charged girls who wanted to “run a program” in front of Lifeguard Post No. 5 on the beach. The prosecutor’s office also reported that some of the women were forced to live in a residence on Machado de Assis St. in the community known as Tijuquinha, in Barra da Tijuca, Western District, Rio de Janeiro.
Segundo a assessoria da Polícia Militar, o PM que fez a ligação está preso administrativamente até o término das investigações.
According to the PM press office, the PM who made the call [from the room reserved for sealed, confidential investigations] is confined to barracks pending the completion of investigations.
Contactados, os policiais que usam a linha do Serviço Reservado do 31º BPM – de onde, segundo a denúncia teria partido a ligação para marcar a festa – disseram que não vão se pronunciar sobre o caso. Segundo o PM que não quis se identificar, o comandante do batalhão vai falar posteriormente.
Contacted for comment, the policemen who used the Reserved Service line at the 31st BPM — from which, according to the charges, the call to schedule a party [with “little girls”] was made — said they had no comment. According to a PM who did not wish to be identified, the battalion commander will make a statement later.
The New Market Machines 