Two men have been arrested for torture after footage emerged of a distressed teenager having “thief” and “loser” tattooed on his forehead.
The suspects, aged 29 and 27, claim the 17-year-old boy had tried to steal a bike from a one-legged man on the street – a claim the teenager denies.
The boy said he had fallen over the bike when he was “very drunk” but hadn’t tried to steal it.
The two men caught the boy and tied up his hands and feet before threatening to tattoo him.
“I asked them to make the tattoo on my arm but they said they would do it on my forehead and started laughing,” he told Folha de S.Paulo in Portuguese.
“I begged them to break my arms and legs instead.”
Police identified the suspects after they shared the video online and the men confessed they tattooed “Eu sou ladrão e vacilão” – which translates to “I am a thief and a loser” – on his forehead.
In the video, the frightened boy sits unrestrained in a chair while the tattoo artist holds him by his hair.
The man filming the video laughs and says “It’s going to hurt”, before asking if he liked it.
When the boy tried to hide the tattoo with his hair, the men cut it off.
The teenager’s family says he has drug and mental health problems and had been missing since the 31st of May. After seeing the video uploaded on Friday, they reported the men to police and the young boy was reunited with his family on Sunday.
Police in the city of Sao Bernardo do Campo, in Sao Paulo state, are yet to confirm whether or not the robbery of the bike happened.
An online campaign has been created to help the boy get the tattoo removed and has raised over 19,000 reais (AUD 7,600).
