Thieves Steal from Filipino Media Crew in Rio de Janeiro

Amid the celebration and hype for the start of the Rio Olympics, Filipino writer and news anchor Lia Cruz revealed last night that thieves entered their hotel rooms in Copacabana, Brazil and stole their money.

In a series of tweets, Lia says that someone broke into their rooms in the official media village despite having biometric locks . But they weren’t the only victims as cameras of a French media crew also got stolen while shooting in the area.

Thieves got into mine and @magoomarjon‘s rooms here in Rio and stole CASH. Worst part is, we’re staying in the official media village.

— Lia Cruz (@liadcruz) August 5, 2016

This is despite fact that locks on all rooms are biometrics, but management of vill has disclosed that housekeeping has access to all rooms — Lia Cruz (@liadcruz) August 5, 2016

We’ve also heard that a French camera crew had their cameras snatched from them while they were filming on Copacabana

— Lia Cruz (@liadcruz) August 5, 2016

Lia says they already filed a report to the police, but there’s no news if the culprit was already found. Nonetheless, Lia kept it positive and posted photos on Instagram to show the beauty of the Copacabana beach.

Copacabana — so beautiful (and I have very high beach standards) yet so unsafe. Very strong military presence nowadays though, for the Games, and the beach vendors I spoke to have noted a significant decrease in crime. But they also wondered what would happen once the military disappears after the Games. It’s breathtaking though.

A photo posted by Lia Cruz (@liadcruz) on Aug 5, 2016 at 1:26pm PDT

Photo courtesy of Lia Cruz’s Instagram

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