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  • Guardian Weekly

    The cross fire Rio’s God-fearing gangsters

    Feb 04, 2022 4 minutes
    By Tom Phillips RIO DE JANEIRO
    Photographs by
    Alan Lima

    ‘Pastor, do you think we could hold a service at my house next Thursday?” the peroxide-haired gangster wondered, cradling an AK-47 as he took a seat beside the man of God.

    A few months earlier, the 23-year-old had bought his first home with the fruits of his illegal work as a footsoldier for one of Rio de Janeiro’s drug factions. Now, he wanted to give thanks for the blessings he believed he had received from above.

    “I’ve dodged death so many times. It was he [God] who delivered me from evil,” the drug trafficker reflected.

    That Christian conviction was echoed all around the young outlaw, on walls adorned with frescoes of the

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