Spiderman's story of drugs and Jesus in Rio's slums
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“If you add them all up I control 15 communities,” boasted Spiderman as his shiny 4×4 hurtled through the narrow backstreets of western Rio de Janeiro. Behind the wheel was Juarez Mendes da Silva, 28, one of the Brazilian city’s most wanted drug lords, better known by the nickname Spiderman. The words “Jesus” and “Christ” were tattooed on to his forearms in black. In the boot his pet dog, Bloodsucker, shared space with an M-16 assault rifle.
With the dashboard’s electronic clock marking 2am, the car careered through the Complexo da Coréia, one of the city’s largest and most notorious slums, home to around 60,000 Brazilians and the HQ of one of the city’s three main drug factions, the Pure Third Command.
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