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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

‘My hands went cold’: Rio’s reporters risk death to reveal criminal ties between police, politicians and mafia

Police Marielle Franco Rio Ronnie Lessa Marcelo Freixo Jair Bolsonaro Brazil O Globo
Posters showing councilwoman Marielle Franco, whose murder has inspired a generation of journalists to probe Rio’s underworld and its ties to police and politicians.
Posters showing councilwoman Marielle Franco, whose murder has inspired a generation of journalists to probe Rio’s underworld and its ties to police and politicians. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP

Rafael Soares’s phone rang and his blood froze. “Ronnie Lessa Googled you,” a federal police contact on the other end of the line told the Brazilian reporter as he stood in his newsroom one morning in 2019.

Any Rio crime journalist worth their salt knew that being investigated by such a man was extremely bad news. Lessa was reputedly one of the city’s most in-demand contract killers: a battle-hardened police combatant turned assassin whose crimes had enabled him to buy a speedboat named after a Belgian machine gun called the Minimi.

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