The man who shot and killed an alleged robber on Thursday in Rio de Janiero may have been posing as a Russian consulate employee, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
Earlier reports from Brazilian state run news agency Agencia Brasil stated that a Russian diplomat struggled with a robber during an attempted mugging, before taking the assailant’s gun and shooting him.
Rio’s Russian Consul General Vladimir Tokmakov denied any consular staff were involved “in a shootout.”
“All Russian diplomats and personnel of Russian foreign institutions located in Rio de Janeiro are safe and sound and are of no relation to the aforesaid incident. The man who was involved in the incident could have presented himself as a general consulate employee,” Tokmakov told TASS.
In a statement released on Friday, a Russian embassy in Brazil spokesperson reiterated that no representative of the Russian Consulate General was involved in the attempted robbery.
“At the time of the incident all Consulate officials in Rio de Janeiro were inside the building itself or in rented space for Russian fans of the Olympics in Copacabana called ‘House of the Fans’,” the statement read.
Local media reports originally said the alleged Russian vice-consul was in a car with his wife and daughter when the robber approached on a bike.
Unconfirmed reports on social media even said the diplomat had used jiu-jitsu to disarm the robber.
Rio de Janeiro’s civil police refused to comment on the case to CNN, while calls to the military police were not answered.