A top Brazilian criminal leader is isolated in prison after he negotiated his own arrest

By MAURICIO SAVARESE
Associated Press

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Authorities say one of Brazil’s top criminal leaders has been locked up in a 6-square-meter (65-square-foot) isolation cell at a maximum security prison to avoid being killed by rivals. Luiz Antônio da Silva Braga, the boss of the largest militia group in the state of Rio de Janeiro, surrendered to federal police on Sunday. The criminal leader better known as Zinho was sent to the Bangu 1 prison, where drug traffickers and militia men are also held, Rio state’s public security secretary Victor Santos said. Militias emerged in the 1990s when they originally were made up mainly of former police officers, firefighters and soldiers who wanted to combat lawlessness in their neighborhoods. They more recently moved into drug trafficking.