Theft rates in Niterói increased in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Data from Crime Map, GLOBO’s monitoring tool, reveals a 75.4% increase in cell phone thefts, a 66.3% increase in vehicle thefts and a 20.6% increase in bystander thefts in the city. The tool also collects data on collective thefts, a modality in which Niterói has maintained low rates of occurrence.
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After identifying and analyzing criminal events in 51 neighborhoods of the city, the negative performance of five specific neighborhoods – Centro, Icaraí, Fonseca, Barreto and Itaipu – was decisive for the increase in the municipal average in the first half of this year. In contrast, figures for the third quarter of 2025 show a 53% reduction in vehicle thefts and a 33% reduction in street thefts compared to the same period in 2024.
Despite these rates, Niterói experiences a lower total citywide number of thefts than some neighborhoods in Rio. In the first half of 2025, it recorded 228 cell phone thefts, a lower number than eight districts in the capital.
Thefts against passers-by across the city totaled a record 451, while Rio’s center alone recorded 1,234 incidents. Regarding vehicle theft, Niterói recorded 153 cases, less than half of Rio’s Pavuna neighborhood alone (386) and fewer than four other neighborhoods in the capital.
Some localities in Niterói did not even have a criminal record during the entire first half of 2025. These are the cases of Cafubá, Jacaré, Jardim Imbuí, Jurujuba, Santo Antônio, Pé Pequeno and Tenente Jardim.
The biggest highlight is Jardim Imbuí, a neighborhood between Piratininga and Jurujuba, where no thefts have been recorded since 2020.
Other neighborhoods, such as Camboinhas and Itacoatiara, frequently visited by residents of Niterói and other towns, have very low crime rates, with one and two cell phones stolen, respectively.
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The Crime Map is the first survey in the history of Niterói to publish detailed criminal data on the city. All information was obtained through the Access to Information Law from the Institute of Public Security (ISP), the body responsible for publishing monthly public security statistics for the state of Rio.
Nine thousand event records were analyzed in Niterói from 2020 to the first half of 2025, covering 51 districts of the city (the smallest territorial unit made available by the FAI). As the tool depends on the ISP update, as soon as the complete microdata for the second half of the city is available, it will be updated. Readers can also email their stories of violence to mapadocrime@oglobo.com.br.
Although Niterói maintains low crime areas, the Center reached records in the historic series that began in 2020. The area recorded 134 cell phone thefts, an increase of 15.5%; and 55 pedestrian thefts, an increase of 19.6% during the first six months of the year. The neighborhood alone accounts for a third of attacks on passers-by and a quarter of device thefts throughout the city.
Besides the Centre, 15 other areas of the city recorded an increase in cell phone thefts in different parts of the city. The increase was greatest in Itaipu, in the oceanic region. Gragoatá has the highest rate of theft per hundred thousand inhabitants.
Civil police investigations indicate that the illegal market in stolen devices in Niterói has strong repercussions in Feira do Laranjal, in São Gonçalo, an area controlled by the Comando Vermelho (CV) faction which, according to data from the Study Group on New Illegalisms of the Federal University of Fluminense (Geni/UFF), controls more than 90% of the communities in Niterói.
Recently, the court sentenced Carlos Henrique de Paula Gonçalves, owner of a stand and identified as one of the receivers operating in the city, to 21 years in prison. He was located and arrested after a stolen cell phone in Niterói was found by police officers in his possession.
Professor Carolina Grillo, from Geni-UFF, emphasizes that the lack of effective monitoring reinforces this cycle.
— Cell phones are very valuable and easy to carry. Without strict state and national policies against reception, the illegal market continues to encourage crime on the streets – he analyzes.
More than half of vehicle thefts in the city took place in the North zone: approximately 53% of the total. The main access roads to the BR-101 (Niterói-Manilha) are in the area. The neighborhood with the most records is Fonseca, with 21 vehicle thefts. In Barreto, a neighborhood neighboring São Gonçalo, incidents doubled, from eight to 16. In contrast, vehicle thefts in Cubango decreased by 50%.
The city of Niterói emphasizes that, although security is a duty of the state, it invests in technology and in strengthening the police. The municipality highlighted that more recent data (July to October 2025) already shows signs of improvement, with a 19.6% drop in thefts from vehicles and 2.5% from passers-by.
The Military Police said it had increased patrols, which would have generated historic results in the third quarter of 2025, with reductions of 53% in vehicle thefts and 33% in street thefts compared to the same period in 2024.
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