Brazil: Thieves make off with whole newsstands

Mr Soares's newsstand was located outside a supermarket on a main road - making the theft particularly brazen

Newspaper sellers in one Brazilian city have been left baffled after thieves made off with two entire news kiosks and everything inside.

The kiosks were taken in two separate incidents in the southern city of Sao Paulo, with the structures being loaded onto the back of a lorry using a winch, the Agora Sao Paulo newspaper reports. Brazilian newsstands are more akin to small convenience stores, often containing fridges selling drinks, as well as snacks, stationary and even Havaiana sandals. They are usually fixed to the ground.

The first theft was reported by news vendor Ivone Alves Pereira, who turned up to work one morning to discover her workplace had vanished. A week later, another kiosk was stolen from the same street, with CCTV footage showing the structure being removed in an operation which lasted approximately 20 minutes. Both thefts took place in December, but made headlines in Brazil on 7 January after news outlets got hold of the security footage.

Police suspect that the thieves were mainly interested in the newsstand structures themselves, which are worth about 10,000 Brazilian real each ($2,500; £1,700), according to the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper. Josadables Francisco Soares, who owned the second kiosk, was told it had disappeared by a friend. "Nobody believes me when I tell them what happened," he tells the paper. "Not even the police officer to whom I reported the crime."

Next story: Belarus market traders shut down over imports row

Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.