Sao Paulo

Museum of Arts of São Paulo, better known as MASP, was robbed on Thursday, December 20th.

Two of the most valuable paintings of the Museum were stolen: Pablo Picasso’s “Portrait of Suzanne Bloch” and Brazilian painter Candido Portinari’s “The Coffee Worker”; the pieces were estimated to value US$ 50 million.

The thieves acted swiftly; the cameras recorded the action, which lasted exactly three minutes, from 5h09 to 5h12 am. The Museum, the most important Museum of Arts in São Paulo and one of the most importants in the Southern Hemisphere, doesn’t have an alarm system; the thieves used a hydraulic jack to prise open the main door and a crowbar to smash a glass door.

The Police are investigating the images, but the camera lacks infra-red capabilities, which degraded the quality of the film; Interpol was called to help; Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo published the movie of the robbery of Museum of Arts of São Paulo.

The Police suspect that the crime was commited by hired professionals. The thieves knew the vulnerabilities of the security, and knew exactly which pieces to grab.

More info in English: Reuters.

Update January 9th 2008: the Police recovered the paintings. The Civil Police arrested two people and recovered the two paintings which had been stolen from MASP. The two men are ordinary thieves who, according to the Police, had already tryed to rob MASP before; because they were ordinary thieves, the Police suspects that they commited the crime by order of someone else, who is now being chased.

Veja magazine #2039 published an article about the decline of murders in São Paulo.

Acording to the article, on December 7th 2007, in the city of São Paulo, there was not one single occurrence of murdering; it was the first time since the decade of the 1950s that the city lived such a peaceful day.

More good news: the statistics say that the criminality has been declining in the city and in the State of São Paulo. From 1999 to date, the number of murders reduced by 79% in the capital city and by 69% in the State. Today, in the State of São Paulo, there are 11 murders per year for each group of 100,000 inhabitants (in 1999, there were 36 - see graph below), which compare to 39 murders in Rio de Janeiro and 22 for Brazil. São Paulo is about to reach the ratio of 10 murders by 100,000 inhabitants, which, according to Veja, is considered acceptable by the World Health Organization.

Besides murders, the number of thefts and violent robberies has also been decreasing since 2000 (since 1994, the same Party, the Social Democrats, have been governing the State). Veja gives special credit to Infocrim, a system inspired in the New York Police, which automatically shares every criminal record among all Police Stations in the capital, and is now being extended to other cities.

By analysing the data provided by Infocrim, the Police can trace the areas and times with higher occurrence of crimes, and can act more methodically. In Capão Redondo, the most violent zone of São Paulo city, saw drops of 75% in criminality after the Police started watching the points considered focuses of crimes.

By using Intelligence (data crossing, phone interception, police infiltration), the Police managed also to take control of the prisons.  Groups such as infamous PCC, which spread terror in the State in 2006, are now tamed, according to Secretary of Justice; and he also mentioned that the Government is investing in social actions, such as providing more medical and dental care, as well as health and birth control planning, to the population in the poorest areas of the city.

The Government of São Paulo is proposing a law which will be a pioneer in Brazil: if a car is stolen, the owner will not have to pay the respective taxes (if he didn’t pay yet) or will have tax refunded (if he already paid the taxes).

In Brazil, the tax on vehicles is called IPVA (Tax on Property of Automotive Vehicles) and is collected by the States (half of the tax must be remitted to the municipality where the vehicle is registered). Each State has autonomy to regulate on IPVA.

Every year, the State establishes a deadline for payment of IPVA; usually, cars with licenses ending in 0 and 1 pay in March, ending in 2 and 3 pay in April and so on. IPVA may be paid all at once, with a discount, or in monthly installments. Today, when a car is stolen, the owner must keep on paying monthly until the DETRAN declares the car is stolen (which may take a few months), or will loose the money, if he paid at once.

After the new law is passed, the owner of the stolen car should go immediately to the Police and file a “Boletim de Ocorrência” (BO), a record of theft. The BO can be filed over the internet, if the car was stolen without violence, or in a Police Department, if the car was robbed with violence (gun point). The BO is automatically passed to the Secretary of Justice, and from there to the Secretary of Finances.

The owner shall pay taxes only until the month that the car was stolen; if the car is recovered, the owner must start pay monthly taxes again. If the IPVA was already paid in totum, then the owner will have to wait for one year to either get a credit or get a refund; if the car is recovered, the credit will be proportional to the months the car was stolen.

See more detailed info (in Portuguese) at this page of the website of the São Paulo State.

Governor of São Paulo José Serra (on the photo, introducing the law) says that it is the obligation of the State to avoid cars being stolen or robbed. If the State fails to acomplish this mission, it is fair that the tax payer be exempted. Cars stolen in other States of Brazil will not be benefited by this law.