Cocacabana

Brazil may be rising, but in Rio's favelas, drugs, crime, and killing are a way of life. A Hipstamatic tour - deep inside the gritty, gang-ridden streets - where few outsiders dare to tread.

Civil police officers, part of the homicide division, stand over a body while investigators try to determine the entry and exit wounds of an ex-community official rumored to have been working with drug traffickers, who was shot to death in the Favela Mineira on July 28.

A trafficker stands with his machine gun in Villa Korea, a Red Command controlled favela on the outskirts of the city on July 17. There are several notorious factions of drug gangs in Rio, the oldest and largest of which is Red Command.

An officer from the homicide division stands over the body of a woman found in the street. Her throat had been cut and while unconfirmed, investigators guessed that she had been raped.

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Jared P. Moossy @'FP'