OLIMPIA, Brazil: Jose Antonio Arantes, a Brazilian newspaper editor and radio host, awoke around 4 a.m. on a morning in March to find his house had been set on fire. With buckets of water, he and his wife doused the blaze before it grew out of control.

Police in Olimpia, a small town in Sao Paulo state, soon tracked down the arsonist: a fireman called Claudio Assis.