Remember those Olympic swimmers who claimed they were robbed in Rio earlier this week? It turns out they may have made the whole thing up…
Brazilian Police went to the Olympic village on Wednesday to attempt to seize the passports of swimmers Ryan Lochte and Jimmy Feigen in order to keep them in the country for questioning about the robbery, but they were nowhere to be found. The formal request for their passports to be seized revealed that the men will be investigated for false reporting of a crime, which holds a maximum sentence of three years in jail in Brazil.
It turned out that Lochte had already flown our of Brazil and was safely back in the US by the time the investigators had arrived, but Feigen’s location is still unknown.
A judge gave feds the authority to hold the athletes after doubts started to grow over their claims, when a surveillance video surfaced of them laughing and smiling as they returned to the Olympic village.
Adding to the evidence stacking up against the men is records taken by investigators from the X-Ray machine that athletes pass through as they enter and exit the Athletes Village, which showed that the men were carrying all of the belongings that they said had been stolen.
The video shows Lochte (blond) and Feigen (in blue) entering the Olympic Village with what seems to be belongings and phones in their hands.