Published on : Monday, January 7, 2019
In total, more than 30 people were robbed on Thursday — about half foreigners from Asia, Europe and elsewhere in South America as the thieves took hostages and waited for more tourists to arrive.
Police said that at least three assailants carrying knives and a gun set up the ambush on the trail, which cuts through a dense forest that borders a slum on the outskirts of the city and has been the site of numerous muggings.
The thieves took cell-phones, cameras, wedding rings and credit cards, police said. Nobody was hurt.
In Rio, authorities are facing a record crime wave that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and damaged the city’s critical tourism industry. Tourists traveling with cameras and smart-phones have become easy targets, particularly on the popular route to the Redeemer statue.
Notably, the incident dealt another blow to Rio’s increasingly lawless reputation and came just days after the inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who made battling crime a centerpiece of his campaign.
The city lost more than US$ 200 million in tourism revenue in 2017 because of crime and violence, according to the National Confederation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism.