The teenager turned himself in early on Tuesday (May 7) in Rio’s northern district with his mothers support as a police net closed in on him. He admitted the crime and voiced regret for his action, saying he was under the influence of cocaine when he perpetrated the crime.
Police said the incident occurred on March 30 in a poor suburb west of the city centre known as Favela do Muquico, where three armed males boarded a bus, robbed passengers at gunpoint, and raped a woman on the moving bus. The victim, a 21-year-old American student, was repeatedly sexually assaulted, and her French boyfriend was beaten. They were forced to withdraw money from cash machines and hand over bank cards before being released.
Police had already arrested three suspects, who, according to police chief Alexandre Braga, were traced using bank receipts and transactions. At the time, there was insufficient evidence to hold them, as the main victims had left the country.
“We identified the places (where transactions took place) and sent out teams of police where we obtained even more information about the suspects’ physical characteristics and then, a little while after, their identity,” he said.
The attack will have increased already heightened concerns about the security at next year’s football World Cup and the Olympics in 2016.
