Cocaine King Reportedly Victim of Rio Police Scam
RIO DE JANEIRO — Police informer Ivan Custodio Barbosa de Lima, spilling the beans on bad cops in Rio, has told judicial authorities that police extorted $10 million from Pablo Escobar, the notorious king of cocaine who escaped from jail in neighboring Colombia in July, 1992.
Lima said he did not participate in the crime but learned of it from former police who did. His version of the events goes like this:
Two military police heard from informers last year that Escobar was holed up in a house that is part of the closed compound of a condominium resort named Vila do Peroba near Angra dos Reis, down the coast from Rio. The cops took the information to civil police detectives and officers, including Deputy Elso Campello, a close adviser to Lt. Gov. Nilo Batista of Rio de Janeiro state.
A group of civil police went to Vila do Peroba. “They subdued two guards at the condominium and entered the residence, and several guards cocked their guns on the second floor, and a person came to negotiate,†Lima told the court.
The cops demanded $10 million, he said. A Rio lawyer “went by plane to take the dollars to Cabo Frio, delivering them to the civil policemen.â€
Escobar presumably returned to Colombia.
Deputy Alvaro Luiz Pinto, head of the civil police disciplinary bureau, said information from Interpol, the international police network, indicates that Escobar may, indeed, have spent time in Brazil in 1992.
After Lima testified on the Escobar shakedown, Campello and two detectives were suspended; the civil police are investigating.
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