Drug lord killed by police

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) -- Despite a heavy police presence, gangsters ordered all shops in a sprawling Rio de Janeiro slum shut on Thursday in mourning for the shantytown's drug lord, killed by police the previous day.

The closure of businesses on gang orders is common in many of Rio's teeming slums when a kingpin dies, but in the Rocinha slum it comes only a day after the authorities said the situation there was totally under control.

Over 1,000 police have been occupying Rocinha -- one of Latin America's largest slums with a population of 150,000 -- since they moved in to stop a gang turf war on Monday.

So far, 12 people have died in the shantytown, which spills down a hillside between upscale seaside neighborhoods in Brazil's second-biggest city and tourist mecca. As violence seemed to have stopped, most shops and businesses in Rocinha, including two banks, reopened on Wednesday, but only briefly.

"Last night youths came down here and told us all shops have to close because it's mourning for Lulu, and to spread the word," said a baker who did not want to be named.

Metal shutters were down on his bakery and all nearby shops, and few people could be seen in the normally busy Rocinha streets. Rocinha has over 2,000 businesses.

Luciano Barbosa da Silva, nicknamed Lulu, who had run the Rocinha drug trade since 1995, died on Wednesday, with another gangster, in a shootout with an elite police unit in the slum.

Police said they were combing other slums for Eduino Eustaquio, or Dudu -- the head of a rival group that tried to oust Lulu last week. Police special forces commander Fernando Principe said in a radio interview he expected to capture Dudu by the weekend.

Rio is a major transit point for Colombian cocaine going to Europe and a big market itself for the drug.

Copyright 2004 Reuters.