Police in Rio de Janeiro investigating a robbery case involving Ryan Lochte and a number of other swimmers from the United States' Olympic team believe new information will show that they were not telling the truth about the incident.
Lochte, James Feigen, Gunnar Bentz and Jack Conger stated that they had been robbed near the Casa França club (part of France's Olympic hospitality venue) in the early hours of Sunday morning last week.
The original reports of the robbery began to surface later that day, after Lochte told NBC's Today show that they were forced to get down on the ground by a group of men showing police badges.
"They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground," said Lochte, "and they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn't do anything wrong, so I'm not getting down on the ground."
Suspicions were raised over the reports that when records at the Olympic village showed that they had returned with a number of belongings which they claimed had been stolen.
Judge Keyla Blanc also said she was puzzled by video footage of the swimmers apparently laughing and joking as they returned to the village. "They arrived with their psychological and physical integrity unshaken," she wrote.
According to Extra, part of the Brazilian Globo media network, Bentz and Conger were prevented from boarding their flight back to the United States and refused to give further details about the case, which raised suspicions with the police. According to Folha, they were advised to remain silent by by three staff from the American consulate and a lawyer, who later said that his clients were "shaken, they didn't understand why they weren't allowed to board [their flight]."
Lochte's father confirmed that the swimmer returned to the US on Tuesday.
Extra report that police believe that they were involved in an incident at a petrol station, while ABC News cite police sources who said that "one of the swimmers was seen on CCTV footage breaking down the door to the bathroom at the gas station and fighting with a security guard."
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