A late night outing turned into asix-hour-long nightmare after an American woman was gang raped and beatenaboard a public transit van while her handcuffed French boyfriend looked onhelplessly, in an incident that's shocked this resort city as it gears up tohost next year's World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
The police response to the attack was swift: The threealleged perpetrators, aged 20 to 22, have all been taken into custody, andinvestigators are combing databases to determine whether the men might havebeen behind any other crimes.
Many still ask whether Rio authorities, who have succeededin cracking down on much of the city's drug violence, are up to the task ofprotecting the waves of tourists expected to flood the city during the upcomingdouble-header of mega-events. Some 2 million people are also expected to flockto the city in late July for World Youth Day, a Roman Catholic pilgrimage thatPope Francis is scheduled to attend.
Some observers said the attack came as a particular shockgiven that safety has improved at least in the city's tourist-friendly, seasideSouth Zone neighborhoods. Foreigners and moneyed local residents who even threeor four years ago would have hesitated to hail a taxi in the street or walkaround after dark now do both without thinking twice.
"No one expects to be attacked in Disneyland,handcuffed and roughed up," Globo newspaper quoted Alfredo Lopes, the headof an association representing Brazil's hotel sector. "Copacabana is ourDisneyland."
Yet it was in that very beachfront neighborhood, full ofsenior citizens in bikinis by day but seedier by night, that the two foreignershailed one of the fleet of public transit vans often used as a speedieralternative to buses. Police investigating the case say the two foreigners,both in their early-20s, were headed shortly after midnight Saturday to Lapa, apopular downtown nightlife hotspot where Rio's youth converges on clubs, barsand samba venues.
But the pair never made it to their destination. A fewminutes into their journey, the van operators forced the other passengers offand inflicted on the two foreigners what Alexandre Braga, the police officerleading the investigation, has called a "party of evil."
The three assailants took turns raping the woman and beatingthe man, whom they handcuffed and sometimes struck with a metal crowbar, Bragatold a news conference Tuesday.
The men split up the driving, ending up in Rio's sister cityof Niteroi across Guanabara Bay, where they went on a spending spree with theforeigners' credit cards. Once they hit the limit on both cards, spendingaround $500 at gas stations and convenience stores, the suspects drove the pairback to Rio, where the foreigners were staying, and forced the woman to fetchanother credit card, Braga said.
Although she was alone, she didn't call the police or alertanyone, Braga said, "because the young man was still under the suspects'control and she feared something even worse might happen to him."
Some six hours after they were kidnapped, the two weredumped by the side of a highway near the city of Itaborai, some 50 kilometersfrom Rio. They managed to make it to an unidentified country's consulate, whereofficials took the two to the special police delegation that specializes incrimes against foreigners. The young woman has returned to the U.S., while theman remains in Rio to help with the investigations, Braga said.
"The victims recognized the three without a shadow of adoubt," Braga said. The men's mug shots were also recognized by anotherwoman who said she'd been raped by the three under similar circumstances lastmonth. Another foreigner has said she'd been robbed by one of the threesuspects, police said.
Two of the suspects have confessed to Saturday's attack,while the third denies any responsibility.
"They do not show any repentance," Braga said."They are quite indifferent, cold."
He said the men appeared to work as legitimate vanoperators, with crime an occasional side venture. Though they apparently wereauthorized to transport passengers in Niteroi and neighboring Sao Goncalo, thesuspects were not allowed to operate the van in Rio, he said.
Authorities presented suspects Wallace Aparecido SouzaSilva, Carlos Armando Costa dos Santos and Jonathan Foudakis de Souza to thenews media on Tuesday.
The suspects allegedly had rented the van, which seats abouta dozen people and has dark tinted windows, from the vehicle's owner, whopolice say is not suspected of any involvement in the crime.
Rio's van services are widely reviled for their precarioussafety conditions and reckless driving, as well as their links to organizedcrime. Some vans are run by militias largely composed of former police andfiremen who control large swaths of the city's slums and run clandestinetransportation and other services. In general, tourists avoid the vans and optfor regular buses or taxis.
Sexual assaults remain a problem on public transit. Lastyear, a woman was raped on a moving bus in broad daylight in a widelypublicized case, and the Rio subway has special women-only cars to help preventsuch attacks.
Still, Brazilian officials emphasized Rio is notparticularly prone to such attacks.
"I think sexual violence is something that can happenanywhere," said Aparecida Goncalves, Brazil's national secretary forviolence against women. "I don't think that the city of Rio is moredangerous than others."
"Now we have more ways of denouncing them," shesaid, "of talking about and taking the necessary measures so thoseresponsible are punished and imprisoned."
Walter Maierovitch, Brazil's former drug czar and anorganized crime expert, said that with crime down overall, one of the city'smain challenges will be making sure visitors remain vigilant and aware of basicsafety precautions.
"There has been a lot of improvement in Rio but thereis still a lot more to be done in terms of security, mainly more preventiveactions, alerting tourists both foreign and domestic of the precautions theyshould take, neighborhoods to avoid," he said.
He added that Saturday's attack "was a setback, but interms of image and security I don't think it is a major or long-lasting onethat will scare tourists away from Rio."
Australian visitors Emma Richardson and Jason Sestic saidthey have been taking extraordinary precautions throughout their weeklong stayin Rio.
"We've stayed well away from Copacabana andthe beach areas at night because of Lonely Planet," said Sestic, referringto the famous backpackers' guidebook. The 35-year-old, who works inconstruction, added, "I'm a pretty paranoid person in general and I'veheard enough stories about here to be really paranoid."