 In 2001 Lopes and his team at Rede Globo received the Prêmio Esso (Brazil's version of the Pulitzer) for an investigative series entitled "Feirão das Drogas" ("Big Drug Fair"), in which he used a hidden camera to show dealers on the street openly hawking cocaine to passing pedestrians, yelling out the drug and its price.His footage also captured armed traffickers parading past on motorcycles with AK-47s.This footage was shot in a dense network of favelas in the Zona Norte called the Complexo do Alemão (German Complex); more specifically within the Complexo this particular area is known as the Grota.