This is not an unusual occurrence out here. However, this time it was someone I knew. He was driving to the airport to travel for a meeting in Rio. His daughter was dropping him off.
Uma tentativa de seqüestro-relâmpago terminou com um assaltante e um refém mortos na Zona Sul de São Paulo, hoje cedo. Ladrões tentaram seqüestrar um homem e sua filha que estavam em um carro.
Uma perseguição policial começou na Avenida Washington Luiz e na Avenida Guarapiranga o carro em que estavam os ladrões bateu. Houve tiroteio com a polícia. Um dos ladrões e o homem seqüestrado morreram. Um soldado foi ferido e acabou morrendo mais tarde no hospital. A refém também ficou ferida . Segundo ela, os ladrões atiraram na cabeça de seu pai e no joelho dela.
Dois assaltantes fugiram.
A "lightening-kidnap" attempt ended with a kindapper and a hostage dead in the South Zone of Sao Paulo early today. "Villains" tried to kidnap a man and his daughter who was in the car.
A police chase started in Avenida Washington Luiz with Avenida Guarapiranga when the villains car crashed. A shoot=out wiht the polioce happened. One of the villains and the kidnapped man died. One soldier was injured and died later in hospital. The daugher was also injured. It seems that the kidnappers hot the father in the head and the daughter in the knee.
Two assailants escaped.
Going back to what Growler and Ian wrote recently, especially something Growler mentioned.
You cannot escape once you are kidnapped, although maybe you will live. The only practical tactic is avoidance.
Don't drive a routine route at a regular time, don't wear jewellry, don't drive a flash car, don't leave your doors unlocked, don't allow your car to get boxed in, don't drive in bad or uninhabited areas (although this one was in the centre of town), do pay attention to your surroundings, do pay attention to people around or near you, if in doubt go another way, don't stop at the side of the street and above all else, if you are kidnapped in South America, hope like hell that the police don't show up.
You cannot stop yourself being kidnapped, you can just make yourself a less attractive or more difficult proposition than the next man.
I will dig out the kidnap statistics, as I remember it is something like one every 45 minutes in Sao Paulo alone.
Mark.
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The French man knows he is back in Paris he can see the eiffel tower
The italian can see the colleseum in Rome and knows he is home .
The Englishman arrives in in London and and can see the mother of parliaments.
The Brasilian knows he is back in Sau Paulo his watch is missing.
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Now that is frightening.
Are these crimes drug related Mark ... i.e the kidnappers demand money so they can buy drugs ?
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>>Are these crimes drug related Mark ... i.e the kidnappers demand money so they can buy drugs
Firstly you have to understand the sums of money involved. Kidnapping someone, killing them if they don't pay or releasing them if they do has an average pay-off of around $2000 US.
They will accept personal cheques. They don't care if it bounces, they know where you live.
If you ae a rich person, in which case the payout can be very high, they will except installments over a period of time and release you after the first installment is paid. They know where you live.
Going rate for the assassination of someone who is annoying you is around 150 pound. Assuming that they are not someone important.
This is a country where a child of 10 can get R$100 (30 quid) for standing outside a slum on a Saturday and warning of police arrival, whereas the policeman will only just earn that in a week.
In Sao Paulo there are 4,000,000 homeless living on only what they can steal.
There is a big drug problem here, but this doesn't involve poor people using drugs, they're more worried about bread. Its the rich that use drugs, the poor merely supply them from an organisation where only the leader gets rich, the rest work for a pittance.
Someone working in a bar will get a salary of 50 pound per month. A company director may receive a salary around 20,000 pound per month.
A speeding fine can be R$600, the policeman who gives you the ticket will receive half that amount as a month's salary.
This inequity is their problem. Sadly, those that live outside Sao Paulo still arrive by the bus load every day believing the old "streets paved with gold" stories.
M.
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I used to pay my bar bill by credit card over the phone ,at night I did not even wear a watch(shorts tee shirt) and if we went anywhere special car door to door and payment by prepayment of credit card details .Mark is oh so wright about Sau Paulo but if you go out of the city into the small towns its so different with the nicest law abiding people you would wish to meet
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BTW, these kidnappings are never "chance" happenings.
They know exactly who they will take, when and how they will take. They usually have had dry runs before the event.
If anything doesn't go according to plan they will simply abort and try again tomorrow.
If they want you, they *will* get you.
The only defence is not to be wanted or seen as a potential target.
As for the people outside the cities that Andy refers to - nice, pleasant people to be sure - but law-abiding ? Stretching a point there young Andrew !
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Definitely NOT rpt NOT time to emigrate - not to Brazil anyway
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No wonder Ayrton got to drive so quickly!
Mike
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No matter what the conditions I would go back to work in Brasil tomorrow and so would everybody I know who has worked there,we had many contractors in the Sau Paulo metro and Rio and nobody came to any harm except a Canadian lebenese gentleman who went to the cash dispenser at two in the morning and withdrew 1000$ and arrived in hospital with nothing
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I would emigrate to Brazil anyday, as long as you are sensible, keep a low profile and don't flaunt your riches you will keep out of trouble.
Andrew
www.hispecgolfs.co.uk
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> Definitely NOT rpt NOT time to emigrate - not to Brazil anyway
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I would emigrate to Brazil anyday, as long as you are sensible, keep a low profile and don't flaunt your riches you will keep out of trouble.
Andrew
www.hispecgolfs.co.uk
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> Definitely NOT rpt NOT time to emigrate - not to Brazil anyway
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I've never been so glad to be scruffy.
Mark didn't you say you drove an A6. Surely this stands out (more than the armoured Zantia anyway).
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>>as long as you are sensible, keep a low profile and don't flaunt your riches you will keep out of trouble.
Really ?
Just the odd little flaw with that;
You`re wrong.
"Flaunting the Riches" is something understood by people who have or covet riches. Depending where you are, the people covet bread. And they *know* you are carrying enough to buy that. And even if you are not, its too late, most of the other gringos do so they will assume you do.
The kidnappers research who they want. They don`t start with walking around the streets looking for a flash git and then try to work out who he is. So your behaviour isn`t likely to have much effect.
If they are looking, they will find you.
So the statement "you will keep out of trouble" is, at best, naive.
Its a game of avoidance and playing the odds. Clearly, not being stupid and not attracting attention makes a difference. But if you start believing it can't or won't happen because you`re careful - then I'll probably not travel in your car.
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Maybe I'll just cancel that holiday.......
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>>Maybe I'll just cancel that holiday.......
No, you don't want to do that.
Of the three main classes of Gringos we get here......(in all cases Rio is safer than Sao Paulo).
1) Tourist.
Pretty safe. Unless they start walking around flashing their cash nobody will notice them. Prob. not any more chance of getting mugged than in any other large city in the world. Normal care and sense will keep you safe, insofar as that is possible anywhere these days.
Don' wear jewellry, don't wander without knowing where you are going, don't go downtown without a Brazilian or experienced Gringo.
Typically they don't venture far enough afield to get to the "bad" places.
2) Gringo resident who knows he is Gringo resident.
Pretty safe if you are careful. Not a flash car, not a routine, don't flash your money or jewellry around. Not as safe as other places perhaps, but people live here for years reasonably safe. It happens, but the odds are in your favour (I am touching wood like mad).
3) Gringo who doesn't realise he is not in his own country.
Dead meat. Typically Gringo businessmen who are here enough to build a pattern and become known, but never get any sense. Copocabana Beach is a dodgy place at night solely because the bad people have learned that your average, typically American, business man will arrive in town, go to his hotel and immediately go for a walk with, what is for a poor Brazilian, a ton of money in his pocket.
Also - Important/Rich Brazilians.
Simply a matter of luck and/or time.
However, to visit this is a spectacular place. And with care can be an wonderful place to live (although I don't actually like it).
Somebody asked about the A6 ? Burned. About three weeks ago it was downtown mid-morning. The chauffeur was pulled out, a petrol bomb thrown in and the doors closed.
It was one of 10 done at the same time.
I'm driving the Xantia still.
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