Crime Archive

The investigation of an elite police unit in Brazil for allegedly trying to cover up the disappearance of a Rio de Janeiro man may represent an opportunity to restore the public’s trust in the rule of law, and perhaps repair the reputation of a controversial program to pacify favelas. The disappearance of Amarildo da Souza, a 47-year-old bricklayer who was last seen by witnesses in July 2013 being led into a local police base in Rio’s Rocinha favela, provoked immediate outrage. Residents and civil society groups demanded justice; prosecutors soon launched an investigation that ultimately resulted in charges of murder, […]

In a scene reminiscent of a Hollywood movie, Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman escaped last week from a maximum-security prison that was allegedly Mexico’s most secure. On the evening of July 11, he apparently climbed down through a two-by-two-foot hole underneath his cell’s shower, only to reappear above ground at the end of a mile-long tunnel, in a bare building under construction. Ominously, one of his sons had reportedly tweeted a few days prior, “All things come to those who wait,” while several “narcocorridos,” or popular drug ballads, had predicted El Chapo’s prison break. Eighteen months after having […]