830,000 Phone Thefts Fuel Brazil Election Debate

About 830,000 cellphone theft cases were registered in Brazil last year, according to the Brazilian Public Security Forum, though thefts have declined since 2023. The crime ranks as Brazilians' No. 4 public safety concern in a March survey, ahead of stray bullets and burglaries. A late-August robbery of content creator Tabata Lenk in São Paulo—motorcycle assailants smashed her car window and took her phone while she sat in traffic—went viral on dashcam. Thieves later used Pix to withdraw 2,000 reais from her account. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed a law raising sentences for electronics theft to up to 10 years and launched a device-registration and theft-reporting platform. Challenger Flávio Bolsonaro proposed a minimum eight-year prison sentence. In a televised address, Lula said he wants to aim at the thief and stores that buy stolen phones, not innocent buyers; Bolsonaro said the cellphone thief is going to jail. Brazil's homicide rate fell 40 percent over the past decade to 15.4 per 100,000 people in 2025. São Paulo state accounted for nearly a third of national phone thefts. The runoff vote is set for the Sunday after Oct. 20, 2026.