Brazilian city faces John Lennon crimewave

John Lennon is on a crime spree in Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais state in south-eastern Brazil. In just over a month police there have arrested three suspected criminals named John Lennon and a fourth landed in the city morgue. The Beatles were immensely popular in Brazil and band member John Lennon the most loved of all.

In the decades since Mark David Chapman shot him in New York City, thousands of Brazilian mothers have named their newborn sons after him. With shocking regularity though, young men named after John Lennon turn up on Brazilian police blotters. The most recent arrest came on Friday morning, when John Lennon Ribeiro Siqueira, 19, prepared to rob a lottery agency in Belo Horizonte.



Police arrested John Lennon Fonseca Ferreira, 22, on Jan. 8 this year, during an attempted home invasion robbery at a residence in the Amazonas neighbourhood of  Belo Horizonte. This John Lennon, say police, is the most dangerous of the lot and among the most hunted criminals in the state. Neighbours alerted police who made the arrest.

On Dec. 19 last year, police arrested John Lenon Camargos Gomes, 22, whom they say committed five homicides in Belo Horizonte. Police arrested this John Lenon in the Aarao Reis neighbourhood, where police say he had terrorised the population. On the night of Jan. 9, the body of John Lennon Sebastiao da Silva, 18, turned up dead in the back seat of a car parked in the Tupi neighbourhood of Belo Horizonte.