Police Misconduct Brazil

Ivan Custodio Barbosa de Lima, a longtime police informer with a sleazy reputation, has turned against Rio's bad cops. Singing like a balladeer, he has regaled investigators and court authorities with a stunning repertoire of tales about just how bad Rio cops can be. Police here have had a rotten reputation for years, based on such deeds as killing delinquent street kids and conniving with organized gangs that traffic in cocaine, stolen cars and guns.

Fabio de Almeida Ramos is a hulking 25-year-old with long eyelashes and a childlike gentleness that has somehow survived a horrific visit to one this city's more notorious prisons. Reluctantly, he tells the story of how five policemen beat him with sticks, how they suspended him in the air by the back of his knees with his wrists tied to his ankles, a torture known as "the parrot's perch." "Things happened that I can't talk about," he abruptly announces. A long and painful silence follows.

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.

Ivan Custodio Barbosa de Lima, a longtime police informer with a sleazy reputation, has turned against Rio's bad cops. Singing like a balladeer, he has regaled investigators and court authorities with a stunning repertoire of tales about just how bad Rio cops can be. Police here have had a rotten reputation for years, based on such deeds as killing delinquent street kids and conniving with organized gangs that traffic in cocaine, stolen cars and guns.

Fabio de Almeida Ramos is a hulking 25-year-old with long eyelashes and a childlike gentleness that has somehow survived a horrific visit to one this city's more notorious prisons. Reluctantly, he tells the story of how five policemen beat him with sticks, how they suspended him in the air by the back of his knees with his wrists tied to his ankles, a torture known as "the parrot's perch." "Things happened that I can't talk about," he abruptly announces. A long and painful silence follows.

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.