“When you arrest him, he lets you go the next day,” says a trader about thieves in the center of SP

In an interview with CNN this Thursday (7), the president of the Commercial Union of São Paulo, Joseph Riachi spoke about crime in the city center: “When he arrests, he releases the next day. There are many promises, but solutions, none”, he reports.

“I find it incredible how people don’t realize the importance of the region and let this happen. We have to wait for it to happen before sending police, the government’s action is a little out of context”, says the trader.

According to Joseph, with the crime scenario, more than 30% of traders have left their establishments around Santa Efigênia, “we have practically ghost streets”.

“Cracolândia users have been here for approximately 30 years and the government tries to hide certain data. All governments had the opportunity to do something here in São Paulo, I haven’t seen any do it in 30 years”, he comments.

For the trader, it is difficult to see a short-term solution. “It’s time to find a solution for this. We don’t see any schedule from any of the governments that has a beginning, middle and end.”

Joseph notices an increase in policing in the region, but considers it an “archaic” option. “The municipality has around 20 thousand Military Police men. Here in the region, there is 10% of that. In other words, 18 thousand men take care of 12 million people and 1,500 men cannot take care of 2 thousand people”.

“What we ask: if it depends on the image and the result, more than half would already be out of here today. We have to keep this hub active, the Santa Efigênia hub is the largest electronics hub in Latin America and even so it is not valued”, says the merchant.

The president of the São Paulo Commercial Union says that the association holds frequent meetings to think about solutions. “We ran several programs, including treatment for drug addicts. We have already offered employment to everyone leaving Cracolândia. We do everything we can as a society and commerce, what we don’t see is the other side being as honest as they say they are.”

What the Public Security Secretariat says

The São Paulo Security Secretariat said it reinforced policing in the region at the beginning of 2023 and that more than 5,000 criminals were arrested in the city center this year alone.

See the complete positioning of the folder:

“The central region is one of the SSP’s priorities, and since the beginning of the year policing has been reinforced with 120 military police officers who work daily in Operation Impacto-Centro, with Operation Rescue and AC35 of the Civil Police and with delegated activity.

In addition, since September, the SSP has started to monitor offenders released in custody hearings in the Capital and signed a Cooperation Agreement with the Judiciary that will facilitate the identification and communication, by police officers to the Judiciary, of criminals who fail to comply. the conditions of penalties or alternative measures on the streets of the State.

Since July, more than 250 cases have been identified and reported to the Judiciary in the central region. This reinforcement resulted in an increase in arrests and seizures this year compared to last year.

From January to October this year, the police arrested 5,455 criminals in the central region (an increase of 28%), seized 114 firearms (an increase of 39%) and 1.5 tons of drugs (an increase of 244%).

In relation to crimes committed, the increase in police actions and presence resulted in the reversal of consecutive increases in 2022 to drops in robberies and thefts since April this year. Across the central region, the 6% drop in robberies and 15% in robberies since April resulted in 4,856 fewer victims of robberies and robberies when compared to crimes recorded in the same period last year.”