‘A clash of two Brazils’: presidential election divides voters – even gangsters

This year’s presidential election has pitted Brazilians, including Rio’s gangsters, against each other like never before. Photograph: Alan Lima.

A bank robber, a gunrunner and a weed smuggler sat down in a square, surrounded by rifle-toting bodyguards and locked in passionate debate over their country’s political future.

“Life’s been easier under Bolsonaro. It’s easier to get guns. It’s easier to get ammunition,” admitted the gun trafficker as he and his clique pondered the battle for power between Brazil’s far-right president and his challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.