Brazil’s ‘Gang of Blondes’ Kidnap Shoppers, Max Out Credit Cards

Police photos of suspected kidnapping gang members, the 'Gang of Blondes' (Photo: Brazilian Police)

The police say the gang is responsible for at least 50 kidnappings in Sao Paulo and in Rio de Janeiro since their crime spree began in 2008.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with the BBC’s Gerardo Lissardy in Rio de Janeiro about the group known as the ‘Gang of Blondes’.

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Marco Werman: Some of you listeners may have maxed out your credit card before, but doubtful it’s ever happened the way it’s happened to some shoppers in Brazil. Over the weekend police in Sao Paulo, Brazil, arrested three members of what’s been dubbed the ‘Gang of Blondes’. Officials say this gang of fair haired women had been kidnapping female shoppers inside Sao Paula and Rio de Janeiro for years. The victims would have their credit cards maxed out and their bank accounts drained at the ATM. The BBC’s Gerardo Lissardy has been following the case. Gerardo, what do police know about this gang?

Gerardo Lissardy: Well, Marco, I just spoke with Sao Paolo anti-kidnap division chief Joaquim Dias Alves. He believes the gang was composed mostly by blonde, young, middle class and educated women. He says that all of them lived a double life by acting like normal people while being part of a criminal organization that carried at least 50 kidnappings.

Werman: So why was this apparently middle class and educated group of women doing this?

Lissardy: They were just picking up victims in the shopping centers just to buy things, as much things as they could. The police are still trying to figure out what happened with the things they bought?

Werman: And what kind of things did they buy?

Lissardy: Mostly they were electronics such as iPods or televisions, telephones, but sometimes they also used the stolen cards to take cash or even to buy luxury clothes. On one occasion he said that they bought 17,000 reals, the equivalent of $9,000 worth of electronics with the credit card of only one victim.

Werman: So, Gerardo, can you walk us through just how this gang of blondes would kind of carry out an operation? They’d go into a mall, they kidnap a woman, then what?

Lissardy: According to investigator Alves, they basically would target wealthy women in the shopping centers and supermarkets. They prefer also women that were physically similar to one of the members of the gang in order to assume their identity while shopping.

Werman: And they’d hold them against their will with a gun or knife in their car and then what? They’d take their cards and go shopping?

Lissardy: Well, yes, with a gun and they kept them in their own cars. They threatened and mistreated the victims according to the police investigator. They had experience in this kind of thing since they had been into the business of express kidnapping for about three years.

Werman: And express because I assume they probably weren’t held against their will too long, just long enough to max out the credit card.

Lissardy: Yes, and this is something very common in Latin America, in Brazil and in the region. Actually, the investigator told me that they are trying to figure out if the gang had criminal activities in other countries of the region. Up to the moment the police already arrested three suspects, two women, one of the blonde and the other dark haired, and one man who they believed helped to secure the kidnappings. But the investigator told me that they are looking for at least four more blondes believed to be part of the gang.

Werman: Yeah, I noticed you said Gerardo that one of the women was not blonde. Are they all really blonde because I saw the pictures and their eyebrows kind of give away some dye jobs.

Lissardy: Well, yes, maybe there is not a natural blonde, but at least five of the member that the police are looking for or already have in prison, they were blondes, they looked like blondes and the other one as I told you is dark haired, yes. And they apparently, what the police investigator told me, is that they were very charming you know, and they used this charm as a weapon you know, just to confuse the employees of the places where they used to buy things.

Werman: The BBC’s Gerardo Lissardy in Rio de Janeiro, thank you very much.

Lissardy: You’re welcome, Marco.

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