Rape a setback for Brazil’s reputation among tourists

A late-night outing turned into a six-hour nightmare after an American was gang-raped aboard a public transit van in an incident that has shocked the city as it gears up to host 2014’s World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

The police response to the attack was swift: The three alleged perpetrators have been taken into custody, and investigators are combing databases to determine whether they might have been behind other crimes.

Many still ask whether Rio authorities, who have succeeded in cracking down on much of the city’s drug violence, are up to protecting the waves of tourists expected to flood the city during upcoming events. Some 2m people are expected to flock to the city in July for World Youth Day.

Some observers said the attack came as a particular shock given that safety has improved, at least in the tourist-friendly seaside South Zone neighbourhoods. Foreigners and moneyed local residents who even three or four years ago would have hesitated to hail a taxi in the street or walk around after dark now do both without thinking twice.

“No one expects to be attacked in Disneyland, handcuffed and roughed up,” said Alfredo Lopes, the head of an association representing Brazil’s hotel sector. “Copacabana is our Disneyland.”

Yet it was in that very neighbourhood, full of senior citizens by day but seedier by night, that the woman and her boyfriend hailed one of the public transit vans often used as a speedier alternative to buses. Police say the tourists, both in their early 20s, were headed shortly after midnight on Saturday to Lapa, a popular nightlife hotspot.

A few minutes into their journey, the van operators forced the other passengers off and inflicted on the two tourists what Alexandre Braga, the police officer leading the investigation, has called a “party of evil”.

The three assailants took turns raping the woman and beating the man, whom they handcuffed and struck with a metal crowbar.

They ended up in Rio’s sister city of Niteroi, where the men went on a spending spree with the tourists’ credit cards. Once they hit the limit on both cards, spending around $500 at gas stations and convenience stores, they drove the pair back to Rio and forced the woman to fetch another credit card.

Some six hours after they were kidnapped, the tourists were dumped by the side of a highway near Itaborai, 50km from Rio. They managed to make it to an unidentified country’s consulate. The woman has returned to the US, while the man remains in Rio to help the investigation.

“The victims recognised the three without a shadow of a doubt,” Braga said. The men’s mug shots were also recognised by another woman who said she’d been raped by the three in similar circumstances last month.

Two of the suspects have confessed to Saturday’s attack. The third denies any responsibility.

“They do not show any repentance,” Braga said. “They are quite indifferent, cold.”

Authorities presented suspects Wallace Aparecido Souza Silva, Carlos Armando Costa dos Santos, and Jonathan Foudakis de Souza to the media on Tuesday.

Sexual assaults remain a problem on public transit. Last year, a woman was raped on a bus in broad daylight in a widely publicised case, and the Rio subway has special women-only cars to help prevent such attacks.

Officials emphasised Rio is not particularly prone to such attacks.

“I think sexual violence is something that can happen anywhere,” said Aparecida Goncalves, Brazil’s national secretary for violence against women. “I don’t think the city of Rio is more dangerous than others.

“Now we have more ways of denouncing them,” she said, “of talking about and taking the necessary measures so those responsible are punished.”

Walter Maierovitch, Brazil’s former drug tsar and an organised crime expert, said that, with crime down overall, one of the city’s challenges will be making sure visitors remain vigilant and aware of basic safety precautions.

“There has been a lot of improvement in Rio but there is still a lot more to be done in terms of security, mainly more preventive actions, alerting tourists both foreign and domestic of the precautions they should take,” he said.

Australian visitors Emma Richardson and Jason Sestic said they have been taking precautions during their stay in Rio.

“We’ve stayed well away from Copacabana and the beach areas at night because of Lonely Planet,” said Sestic, referring to the famous backpackers’ guidebook. “I’m a pretty paranoid person in general and I’ve heard enough stories about here to be really paranoid.”