São Paulo App Driver, Mistaken for Pedophile, Is Robbed, Savagely Killed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Five people were arrested on Sunday, January 3rd, in Parelheiros, in southern São Paulo city, suspected of involvement in a robbery followed by torture and death of app driver Roger Fereira Silva, 35. His cell phone and two bank cards were taken by the criminals and recovered by police.

According to police, the driver was mistaken for a pedophile by the criminals, and was therefore tortured and killed after the robbery.

According to the Civil Police, on the night of December 30th, the driver answered a call made by a tiler, along with another man, both 25, as well as a telemarketing attendant, 19. The precise location was not reported by the police.

After that, the two men and the woman entered the GM Corsa driven by the victim and announced the robbery, as reported by the 6th Precinct. The trio is suspected of having killed Silva, with cruelty, after the robbery.

The victim sent two audios to relatives between the end of the night of December 30th and the early morning of the following day. In each one he asked for R$300. The Civil Police states that the messages had been sent during the robbery. The family never heard from the driver again.

The car was found burnt out three days later in the region of Parelheiros.

After the driver’s disappearance, relatives noticed activity in Silva’s email and called the police, who traced and found his cell phone with a 12 year old girl on Sunday, January 3rd.

Upon being approached, the child told the police that she had received the phone as a gift from a family friend, a 53-year-old metalworker who, according to the police, claimed to have bought the device for R$200 from a 25-year-old bricklayer.

The two adults were taken to the police station and arrested in the act for reception of proceeds of criminal origin. The police are investigating their alleged involvement in the other crimes.

After being found, the bricklayer told the police where the two 25-year-old men and the 19-year-old girl who killed the victim could be found. The trio were arrested.

In a deposition to the 6th Precinct, the telemarketing attendant admitted to the robbery, naming the two men as suspected of torturing and murdering the victim, as well as reporting the location where the driver had been buried.

In a dense wooded area near Limas Road, also in the southern zone, Silva’s body was found in a shallow grave, with his hands tied behind his back and his fingers missing.

After finding Silva’s body, the two men confessed to the Civil Police that they had killed the driver by slitting his neck, as well as pulling off his fingers, because they believed he was a pedophile. The two suspects justified their suspicion by finding photos of boys on the driver’s cell phone.

However, the victim’s cell phone contained no illegal material, according to police. They were only photos of his five children.

The gun used to kill the driver had not been located until the publication of this report.

“The defendants reported that they requested permission from the Primeiro Comando da Capital faction to execute the victim, which determined through its ‘hierarchy’ that the victim should be tortured before death, as well as evidence of the victim’s execution by sending the victim’s fingers to members of the criminal organization’s ‘discipline’,” reads an excerpt from the police report.

The driver’s body was buried with the help of a hoe, seized at the trio’s house, along with rifle ammunition and clips for this same type of weapon.

The two men and the woman were indicted for criminal association, illegal possession of a firearm, quadruple homicide (futile motives, and concealment of a body), in addition to torture, resistance and robbery.

Their arrest was converted into preventive custody (for an indefinite period of time) by the Court on Monday, January 4th.

The men who sold the victim’s cell phone were indicted for receiving stolen goods.