Drug Traffickers Pose With Assault Rifles at Olympic Village Pool in Rio

10/21/2014 - 08h41

"I loved the pool man. What a complex, it's all ours," commented drug trafficker Celso Pinheiro Pimenta, AKA Playboy, 32.

He was referring to photos of his friends posing with their guns in the swimming pool of the Honório Gurgel Olympic Village, in the north of Rio de Janeiro.

Members of the criminal faction ADA (Amigos dos Amigos, or "Friends of Friends" in English) celebrated the expulsion of rivals from the Comando Vermelho ("Red Command") in the small hours of the fifth of this month.

Their communications were intercepted by the police.

In the Olympic Village pool, the drug traffickers splashed around in the water and posed for photos with three assault rifles. The images were uploaded to Facebook and obtained by the civil police.

The Olympic Village was inaugurated in 2012 for purposes of training and leisure of the communities located in the area.

An advisor from the Municipal Secretariat of Sport admitted that the complex had been broken into, and asked the police to increase security.

There were no students or residents of the neighbourhood in the complex at the time.

Playboy is wanted by the police as one of the bosses of ADA, and is suspected of cargo robberies in the area.

In the same recording, he says that he robs cash machines, banks and safes. "We don't steal from the poor," he said. "We only steal from the rich."

In the community, Playboy says he looks after the youngest members of the gang (minors, legally speaking), providing them with apartments.

On social networks, the group show off their firepower at various different points around the favela.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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