Greater São Paulo Area Sees Surge in Thefts and Robberies

By Jay Forte, Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – According to a government report issued yesterday (April 24th), theft in the greater São Paulo area, excluding the capital city, increased by 24.07 percent, which increased from 5,323 to 6,604 in the comparison between the months of March, between this year and last year.

Theft in the state of São Paulo increased by 3.6 percent in March, compared to the same month of 2014. There were 957 occurrences more, bringing the total to 27,793, of which 14,217 in the capital, an increase of 0.9 percent before the 14,093 records in March 2014.

The Secretary of Public Security, Alexandre Moraes, explained that the increase was driven by the cities that are in the vicinity of the capital. He said the numbers deserve further analysis, and said that has requested data on all sectional and police stations, one by one, and the records are being analyzed.

Moraes claimed that, “there were 41.76 percent more recorded theft of mobile phones,” which may have been reflected in the high index.

In the capital, there was also an increase in the number of murder victims with intent to kill. There were 110 cases in March last year and 113 last March, up 2.7 percent. However, the state and the Greater São Paulo registered declines of 24.7 percent and 12.5 percent, respectively.

The reports of robbery leading to death in the capital increased by 33 percent. Last month there were twelve cases, compared to nine in March 2014. The city also expanded by 4.9 percent in the number of thefts, which totaled 16,226 in March this year, and cargo thefts had a significant increase of 37.7 percent, from 387 to 533 in the monthly comparison.

Rio de Janeiro has also seen a similar trend according to a report released in January by the Public Security Institute (ISP), as cases of pedestrian robberies rose again since last year. There was an increase of 12.5 percent, with 5,667 reported incidents in December 2013 and 6,374 in the same month in 2014.