A professional wrestler tried to return a stolen motorcycle in a Rio de Janeiro favela but was killed

The Muay Thai and MMA fighter, well known in sports circles, was killed this Monday by drug traffickers in a favela in Rio de Janeiro after he went alone to the area to try to recover his motorcycle, stolen a few hours earlier by two criminals . Diego Braga Nunez, 44, was executed after drug traffickers found contact details for rival gang members on his mobile phone.

A fighter who, when he was still fighting professionally, faced world famous names such as Charles do Bronx, Anderson Silva, Minotauro and Minotoro, was beaten, tortured and then executed in cold blood by drug traffickers linked to Comando Vermelho (CV), the largest criminal organization in Rio de Janeiro, in the favela of Morro do Banco, in Itanhang, in the western zone of this Brazilian city. The man, identified by police as Tahua da Silva, 18, known in the criminal world as 2B, was arrested on Tuesday and admitted to participating in the murder of the gunman.

Diego had his motorcycle stolen from his home in the Musema area, also in the western zone of the capital Rio de Janeiro, early on Monday morning, and when analyzing images from the internal CCTV circuit of the condominium where he survived, he was able to see the faces of the two thieves and decided to go after them. All Monday he traveled through the streets and alleys of the favelas of Morro da Tijuquinha and Morro do Banco in search of his motorcycle, but in the latter he found himself hostage to drug dealers.

The fighter explained to the traffickers that he simply wanted to return the motorcycle, and everything seemed to be going well until, when searching Diego’s mobile phone, the criminals found contact details for members of a rival criminal group, the militia that dominated the Musema just over a month ago where he lived. Seeing the names of their competitors, the drug traffickers became even more aggressive and began to question Diego about his relationship with the militias driven out of Musema by the same group that took him hostage, and did not believe him when he assured them that he had nothing to do with to the policemen, I only knew them because they all lived in the same area.

According to Tawan’s testimony on Tuesday, when he was arrested, realizing he might be killed, Diego tried to escape the hands of the criminals, all of whom were heavily armed, and ran away, but was caught, brutally attacked and then killed.

Friends already searching for him received information on Monday afternoon that Diego’s body had been left by his killers in a square in Morro do Banco and went there, confirming the death of a fighter who had won 23 fights in his career, of which he He drew 1 and lost eight and currently owns the Tropa Taha fighter training academy, one of the greatest exponents of which is his own son Gabriel Braga, who achieved success in the USA in the UFC category last year.