Photo credit: Leo Correa/ Associated Press

New Zealand MMA fighter Jason Lee says men in police uniforms kidnapped him in Rio de Janeiro, forcing the jiu-jitsu specialist to withdraw money from two ATMs and hand it over, or be be arrested.


That’s according to the New Zealand Herald, citing Lee’s social media posts:

On Facebook, Lee wrote “yesterday I got kidnapped in Brazil.” Lee said he was kidnapped by people in police uniforms, “not by some random people with guns.” He added “I was threatened with arrest if I did not get in their private car and accompany them to two ATMs to withdraw a large sum of money for a bribe. “I’m not sure what’s more depressing, the fact this stuff is happening to foreigners so close to the Olympic Games or the fact that Brazilians have to live in a society that enables this absolute bullshit on a daily basis. This place is well and truly f***ked in every sense of the word imaginable.”


Lee appears to have been living in Brazil long enough to integrate himself into a jiu-jitsu gym; his YouTube page has videos as recent as this week featuring his fellow fighters. The Olympics begin in less than two weeks; Rio police are already warning visitors that they are not safe.