In , the media reported him missing while working undercover on a story in one of Rio's favelas. It was later learned that Lopes had been accosted by drug traffickers who controlled the area, was kidnapped , driven to the top of a neighboring favela in the trunk of a car, tied to a tree and subjected to a mock trial, tortured by having his hands, arms, and legs severed with a sword while still alive, and then had his body necklaced βa practice that traffickers have dubbed micro-ondas [ 1 ] [ 2 ] in allusion to the microwave oven.
The details of Lopes's death received substantial attention in Brazil's media because of the barbarity of the crime and due to it highlighting the existence of poder paralelo parallel power within Rioβmeaning criminals controlling areas of the city with impunity.
Arcanjo Antonino Lopes do Nascimento was born in Pelotas , Brazil , the fourth child of a family of twelve. When he was 8 years old, his parents moved the family to Rio de Janeiro , where they lived in humble circumstances in the Mangueira favela in a three-room shanty. He was a dedicated fan of the professional Rio football club, Vasco da Gama.
Lopes lived with his wife Alessandra Wagner and her son Diogo. Lopes also had a nineteen-year-old son, Bruno, from a previous marriage, with whom he maintained a father-son relationship. Tim Lopes's journalism colleagues described him as an old-school type reporter who gleaned his stories from researching on the street as opposed to sitting in an air-conditioned office browsing the Internet for ideas. The story described certain baile funk run by traffickers baile funk are dance concerts held in favelas featuring live performers singing a style of rap called Rio Funk.
During one assignment in , Lopes posed as a street vendor while concealing a camera within a cooler. His aim was to shine a journalistic light on the risks posed to ordinary citizens of Rio of being mugged or assaulted by thieves, as this was a particularly acute reality at that time.
