Brazilian content creator Tabata Lenk had just been fired from her job in Sao Paulo , and was sitting in traffic, when two motorcycle assailants smashed her car window and snatched her brand-new cellphone from the dashboard.
there were still some 830,000 registered last year, according to the Brazilian Public Security Forum Although phone thefts have been falling since 2023. With Brazil’s homicide rate falling by 40% over the last 10 years, to 15.4 per 100,000 people in 2025, according to the Forum, cellphone theft serves as a reminder of how far the country still has to go in bringing a sense of security to its over 210 million people.
Footage of the late-August robbery, recorded on her dashcam, immediately went viral, Lenk said. The reaction points to how an urban nuisance has become one of the defining issues of this year’s presidential election .
Incumbent Lula signed a law earlier this year raising sentences for stolen electronics to up to 10 years in prison and launched a platform to register devices and report thefts, while Bolsonaro has proposed a minimum eight-year prison sentence.
“I only want to take aim at the thief and the store that buys and sells the (stolen) phone, I don’t want to harm the innocent person who bought it out of necessity,” Lula said in a televised address. “The cellphone thief is going to jail,” Bolsonaro said in a livestream after the first-round vote. Lenk said she felt so unsafe after the robbery that she only returned to driving alone after getting her windows tinted. “No one should be afraid to leave their house, walk in the street, or use their own cellphone,” Lenk said. “So, I believe choosing politicians committed to public safety is essential.”
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his right-wing challenger Flavio Bolsonaro, who will face off in a tight presidential run-off vote next Sunday, have both been jockeying to show they are tough on phone thieves.
