Pix will bring about the rampant robbery in Brazil?

According to the 2025 Yearbook of the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, released at the end of July, between 2018 and 2024, there was a 51% reduction in robberies in Brazil, with notable decreases in robberies in commercial establishments (24,4%) and against pedestrians (22,6%). I offer a provocative context here. The main reason for this decline was not public security and its policies strictly speaking. It was much more the instant transfers through the free PIX system. The popularization of PIX may have caused a drastic reduction in the circulation of cash—and even "plastic money" (cards)—in public and private spaces of collective circulation, from streets to shops, leaving retail criminals empty-handed, waving weapons in vain. It is estimated that 76% of the population uses PIX in small and frequent transactions and that it has become, in recent years, the main means of payment in the country via smartphones.  

The retail market for robberies began to lose its profitability due to the reduction in opportunities for continued criminal gains in urban routines: streets, transportation, shopping malls, intersections, traffic lights, and sidewalks. Less cash sitting idle in our pockets and in cash registers meant less profitability for independent and, to a large extent, amateur robbers. The issue became one of not being careless with your cell phone and making a PIX (Brazilian instant payment system) payment in a safe place.

It can be said that the starting cost of committing robberies has become increasingly expensive—and less attractive to small-time criminals—after the implementation of PIX (Brazil's instant payment system). To carry out robberies, it's necessary to incur upfront expenses: paying for the rental of the weapon, the purchase of ammunition, the minimum logistics to exploit opportunities that attract thieves, and also obtaining a license from the criminal organization to operate in its area, setting aside some small change to bribe criminal records and cover the cost of breaking a police report if you're unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the police. 

With PIX (Brazil's instant payment system), criminal opportunities have been dwindling, even with the inaction of public security policies. Armed robbery costs more than autonomous, individualized criminals can earn per day in expenses. As this cycle continues, the financial equation for common robbery seems to become increasingly negative. Of course, it takes much more work, much more time, and far more violent resources to force each victim to make a PIX payment during the dramatic "hands up – or you've lost, playboy" ordeal. It's dysfunctional! Crime was once more successful when it was enough to take the purse or wallet and immediately flee the scene. After all, the risk of loss increases even more when the recipient is a criminal who is identifiable and locatable by their active PIX key and bank account. Criminals have better things to do than pay to rob passersby, be duly recognized, and have their "CPF (Brazilian taxpayer ID) canceled."

Violent crimes like bank robberies and express kidnappings, which revolved around cash withdrawals, also seem to be losing their effectiveness, even as side hustles to revive a declining criminal life. Money no longer circulates as it once did. The victim may transfer the money immediately, but it can be traced later. The gain is uncertain—and the risk is greater. From the outside in, from the street to the cell phone. From the gun to the link. Robbery seems to be moving from the street corner to the app. Money is in the air—literally—and if things continue this way, criminals will have to become more skilled, more literate in scams on digital avenues and squares. 

The prominent and compelling hypothesis here is that public security, in its traditional policy of unfocused but highly visible repressive overspending, has done little to celebrate this decline. Ostensibly patrolling remains reactive, dependent on the 190 emergency number, reducing the police to a "after the robbery" police force, lacking effective deterrent capacity and prompt response. The extremely low rate of solving these crimes remains hostage to immediate and self-evident factors of resolution that precede and are independent of any investigative work. These are isolated, discontinuous events, with lower chances of catching the perpetrators in the act, resulting in investigations destined for the archives and lacking prestige in police routine. Robberies do not constitute an investigative priority. Despite being violent, affecting anyone, and being a driver of the collective perception of insecurity, the mass of robberies has become part of the general mix of occurrences of minor political-police importance. While crime migrates to the digital realm, the State continues to avert its gaze from the offline world. Everyone's in the security bubble on WhatsApp, in the lawless—and unpatrolled—land of the internet.

Is the explanation for the drop in common robberies really outside the police and public security? Yes. It may lie in the reorganization of criminal space and activity caused by the Central Bank with PIX, which altered the economic rationale of common crimes of opportunity and modest, cumulative, short-term gains. It seems the police kept looking at the ground while crime soared to the clouds. And it was the Central Bank, without rifles, vests, sirens, or armored vehicles, that is disarming common robbery across Brazil, pushing the losses to the far other side of crime. PIX can already request a song on Fantástico!