Soccer: Police corner leader of feared kidnap gang

Brazil's football world is breathing a sigh of relief after armed police captured the suspected mastermind behind a recent wave of kidnappings that have terrorised the game's top domestic stars.

Celio Marcelo da Silva, known by his chosen moniker of "Bin Laden", is thought to have been the brains behind at least 11 snatches, including that of the mother of football star Robinho. She spent 41 days in captivity last year.

After receiving a tip-off that da Silva was about to leave the city, police tracked him down to Morumbi, an upper-class region in Sao Paulo's south zone. Night was falling when security services surrounded the kidnapper's car.

In the gun battle that followed, Bin Laden's girlfriend, Taiane de Melo Batista, 24, was wounded. Police found false documents and two revolvers in the car - the "tres-oitao" which is standard kit for the drug gangs that dominate Brazil's larger cities.

The arrest punctuates a traumatic year for those caught up in this latest spate of "sequestros".

Following a series of kidnappings, mostly in Sao Paulo, Brazilian football clubs have stepped up security levels around their players. Since December five players' mothers have been abducted.

Robinho, whose mesmerising stepovers have earned him the title "the new Pele", was negotiating a multimillion-dollar move to Real Madrid, sealed last month, when armed men snatched his mother, Marina da Silva Souza, from a barbecue on the Sao Paulo coast in December.

She was dumped on the city's outskirts 41 days later after the payment of a ransom, thought to be around 50,000 ($128,000). Dona Marina's head had been shaved and police said Bin Laden's men had subjected her to psychological torture.

In May the kidnappers struck again. The mother of Corinthians defender Marinho was snatched from her home in the impoverished Aparecida housing project in Santos. The kidnappers were disguised as florists. The mothers of three other high-profile Brazilian players - Rogerio, Grafite and Luis Fabiano - have also been kidnapped this year by gangs seeking to cash in on the players' mammoth pay cheques.

Police say Bin Laden was the leader of Sao Paulo's biggest kidnapping gang. On the run since 2002, when he tunnelled out of the notorious Carandiru prison with 28 fellow inmates, he worked alongside Ediraldo Oliveira Freitas, or "Galo", targeting wealthy families and businessmen in Sao Paulo and the neighbouring state of Minas Gerais.

The targeting of wealthy footballers is a new phenomenon, but kidnaps are old news in Brazil. Last year 83 cases were registered in Sao Paulo, where rich businessmen, fearful of being taken hostage, routinely travel in bullet-proof cars with tracking devices and blacked-out windows.

This year has already seen a 27 per cent rise in the number of kidnappings compared with 2004.

In response to the 28 kidnappings already reported this year, Sao Paulo Governor Geraldo Alckmin recently pledged to build a special prison for kidnappers.

- INDEPENDENT