Odd News

Wanted gangster drops by prison for mass

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-06-02 09:33

Brazilian police are investigating how an accused drug kingpin wanted by the authorities dropped by a local prison to take part in a sermon last week and left through the front door.

Alberico Medeiros spoke during a Pentecostal sermon in front of 480 inmates about his years as a drug trafficker, how he used drugs, carried guns and had a huge gang of cutthroats at his command. He says he has since become religious and has abandoned his criminal ways.

Medeiros, who has spent time in Rio de Janeiro's maximum security jail, faces trial on 12 counts of trafficking and other unlawful activities.

"He may have repented his sins, but he is wanted by the police," an investigator in Rio, the home city of Medeiros, told Reuters Wednesday.

"It's incredible that he dares to show up in a prison like that, talking about his crimes, and nobody even stops him."

Police said they questioned a preacher who held the sermon in the Minas Gerais state jail, but he denied knowledge of an arrest warrant in Medeiros' name.