Rio police occupy slums after gangland massacre

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazilian police have occupied two Rio de Janeiro slums in search of a drug kingpin suspected of ordering a massacre of up to 18 people whose bodies had been dumped on Rio streets this week.

A security secretariat spokeswoman said criminals greeted police with fire when officers invaded the hillside slums known as Kerosene and Sao Carlos to arrest Tiago Teixeira, the 21-year-old kingpin known as Coelho, or Rabbit, in Portuguese.

A police investigator who did not want to be named said most of the slain belonged to Rabbit's own gang and had apparently conspired against him in a turf war, while others probably were from a rival gang that supported the mutiny.

Police have so far found 14 bodies dumped in different parts of the crime-ridden city, including 10 corpses found on Tuesday inside three abandoned cars.

Two bodies also were found in a car on Monday and two were found in a channel not far from the City Hall on Tuesday.

Most of the corpses had signs of torture and bullet wounds typical of executions. Slum dwellers also reported four other people as abducted and slain by criminals. Police were looking for their bodies.

Execution-type killings are typical not only of gang wars, but also of many death squads active in Rio de Janeiro.

In March 2005, a death squad comprising off-duty police officers slaughtered 29 innocent people in Rio's worst massacre.

- REUTERS