Ariana and Arion - the Witches from Rio

PROLOGUE

The Witch-Hunt

In January of 1993 Rio de Janeiro's police carried out a series of operations in the slums on the city mountainsides, which was dubbed 'Witch-Hunt'. Powerful drug-dealers and their associates were arrested. The operations were on the front page of newspapers, and were followed by long law suits which did not gain much publicity, but those stories were anyway kept in people's memory.

The price was high: 23 deaths in one week. Only a few people complained; it was clear that such an ambitious action could not be undertaken without a blood bath. In the future, any violent action of the police would be questioned, if not by Justice, by the public voice. In that moment, the arrests and law suits were celebrated as a victory – of law and order.

Overlooking the deaths, the press suggested there was a male witch (also named a sorcerer), who was able to give all traffickers' names to the higher ranks of the police. Who else would be able to gather so much information about organized crime? However, his true identity, or even if he did exist or not, is still a mystery.

The empty space left by the arrested traffickers was taken up. The new drug dealers learned the lesson: not only should they share their power, limited to specific zones, they also had to avoid public recognition, pictures, and information exchange. They had to erase footprints — this could turn into another blood bath — and defend their territories.

A shadow fell over the slums on mountainsides and their reality. People speculated about identities and names. Even so, the new drug dealers did the same as the old ones: they spent money to protect and please the local community in the territories where they were based. They became saints, or almost-fictional characters. As the witch that had vanished, they turned into legends that caught people's imagination — did they really exist? Do they still exist in present times? And if they do, and run the millionaire drug business, what is the relationship they have with the police?

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