Brazil’s poverty stricken favela dwellers have been looking forward to the Rio Olympics as a time to achieve gold. Some of Rio’s lower class slum dwellers resort to pick-pocketing and theft to survive harsh living conditions by preying on vulnerable tourists attending the Rio Olympics. Tri-City Herald reports: Marcelo Simoes stands on the porch of his one-room brick-and-cinder-block home in a Rio de Janeiro favela, sorting through his freshly acquired loot — $45 in cash, an iPhone 6, California ID and two credit cards he snatched hours earlier. Simoes and two friends nabbed the goods from an unknowing Copacabana beachgoer’s purse before burying it in the sand and walking away unnoticed. “I wish it was Reais, but dollars will do,” he said in his native Portuguese, grinning. The 17-year-old Simoes and several friends living in the Santa Marta favela (slum) are frequent visitors to the popular tourist beach, where as many as 2 million people pack the 2.2-mile stretch annually for popular Rio holidays such as New Year’s Eve and Carnival. Simoes colludes with his favela neighbors, also teenagers, to distract tourists and walk away with their valuables. Most of his victims don’t realize they’ve been robbed until it’s too late, [...]
