Cell phone thefts increased in Niterói — the increase was 20.6% in the first half of this year, compared to the same period of 2024 — but they exploded in Icaraí, the most populated neighborhood and with the most valued square meter in the city. There were 32 cases in the first six months of 2025, a record in the district’s all-time series and more than triple the nine events recorded the previous year. The increase, of 255%, was the largest among the localities of Niterói with more than ten registrations and places Icaraí as the second neighborhood with the highest number of cell phone thefts in the city, behind the Center. The number of pedestrian thefts and car thefts remained stable in the region.
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Civil police investigations reveal that a considerable part of the devices stolen in Niterói are destined for Feira do Laranjal, located in an area under the control of Comando Vermelho, in the neighboring municipality of São Gonçalo. Last July, agents of the 76th DP (Niterói) arrested Carlos Henrique de Paula Gonçalves, owner of a stand at the fair and identified as one of the biggest recipients of stolen devices in the city.
Gonçalves was identified after a telephone operator informed police that a stolen phone in Niterói had been reconnected and was being used by a new owner. The agents then located and summoned the person, who returned the material and stated, in a statement, that he had purchased it at the Gonçalves stand, in Feira do Laranjal.
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Dozens of devices were found at the dealer, including seven stolen or stolen. In a statement to the court, Gonçalves admitted “not knowing the origin of the purchased equipment, usually buying it broken with the intention of repairing and reselling it.” On the 2nd, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison by Judge Juliana Cardoso Monteiro de Barros, of the 3rd Criminal Court of São Gonçalo.
— The mobile phone is a small object, with high added value and essential. Since everyone has one, anyone on the street becomes a target. Additionally, there is no effective national or state policy to monitor and combat the hospitality market. And this illegal market generates a lot of money, encouraging the practice of crime. Structured reception networks support the increase in delinquency on the streets — analyzes Carolina Grillo, professor at the Department of Sociology and Methodology of Social Sciences at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF).
What is the crime map?
What are the most dangerous neighborhoods in Rio and Niterói? Where have the thefts progressed? When is the least safe time to walk in your neighborhood? To help answer these questions and understand the dynamics of violence in the city, GLOBO developed the Crime Map, an interactive theft monitoring tool with unprecedented crime data by neighborhood.
After launching the first edition in the middle of this year, with data from 2024 referring to the city of Rio, we are now publishing the second edition of the platform, based on data referring to the first half of 2025, with information on four different crimes – cell phone thefts, thefts from passers-by, vehicle thefts and collective thefts – in 147 neighborhoods in the capital of Rio de Janeiro, in addition to 51 neighborhoods in Niterói.
The tool was created using microdata obtained via the Access to Information Act from the Institute of Public Security (ISP). The body, responsible for compiling security statistics in the state, publishes monthly indicators divided by battalion and police station areas, which in most cases cover several neighborhoods. Seeking to understand hyperlocal criminal dynamics, GLOBO requested more precise data on the location of crimes and received information on the neighborhoods where each incident was recorded, the smallest territorial unit made available by the ISP. This is the first time crime indicators in Rio have been published with this level of detail.
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