You might expect a little mayhem in a country where 20 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty and another 20 percent is said the be "barely surviving." In one 9-month period, there were 6,012 murders in Rio alone. These days, about 18 people are murdered each day in Rio. In Sao Paulo, 25 people are killed every day. About 90 percent of all the violent crimes in Rio are committed against or by minors. Most of the violence can be linked to drugs and theft. Teenage drug bosses have set up their narco shops in the favelas, the slums in Rio's surrounding hillsides, and loaf around in sandals toting automatic rifles. In February 1997, police found a gang of street kids in possession of an antitank rocket launcher, antitank rockets and machine guns. Eeks! Such weaponry might help explain the ease Brazilians enjoy stealing cars. Auto thefts average a whopping 3,000 per month in Rio, and a simply staggering 10,000 per month in Sao Paulo.
Try, Try Again
A mathematics teacher, down on his luck, attempted suicide July 9, 1997, by detonating a bomb he was carrying aboard a TAM airliner. The blast killed another passenger, who was sucked out of the aircraft, but not the bomber himself. Not pegged as the culprit, the man was set free, only to wind up in a Sao Paulo hospital the next day-still quite alive-after being run down by a bus in another suicide attempt.
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