Surge in armored car sales in Brazil

have dropped by only 6 percent. More police officers are on the streets, especially on big, congested avenues, said Tulio Kahn, the São Paulo state coordinator of planning and analysis. Global positioning systems and coded locking devices have helped many owners track and retrieve their stolen cars.

Yet, Kahn said the drop in the crime statistics “has not kept people from continuing to feel insecure.”

A new wave of “flash” or “express” kidnappings, unplanned assaults in which robbers take their captives to cash machines and then free them after a few hours, has not helped matters. “This type of crime has really scared people,” Kahn told Barrionuevo.

A commodity-led boom in Brazil in the past several years gave many Paulistanos the money to fight back. More stable inflation set off an unprecedented expansion in consumer credit. Car sales surged to record levels, topping 2.8 million in 2008, up from 1.9 million in 2006; according to government statistics, there are about 6.4 million cars on the roads in São Paulo, a city with a population of 11 million.

The ability to buy cars in multiple payments also helped make armored cars more affordable to middle- and upper-middle-class professionals. Today, dentists, children of small businessmen, even shoe store owners are buying armored cars, many of them used, said João Jorge Chamlian, owner of Auto Miami, a dealership here for armored cars.

On the city’s outskirts, at the hangar-size assembly plant for Truffi, one of Brazil’s largest armoring companies, some 100 workers installed yellow Kevlar and thick glass windows one recent morning. The bulletproof armor adds about 400 pounds to a car’s weight, which reduces gas mileage and increases wear and tear. For Neves, who spends more than two and a half hours a day commuting, the more protection the better. He was shaken, he said, when a client of his was shot dead by a robber who took only the man’s watch. “When you are inside an armored car,” Neves said, “you feel as if you are inside a fortress.”

For Alessandra Amara, a bulletproof car became a necessary expense three years ago, she said, after she was robbed for the 11th time in little more than 10 years. “Having an armored car in this city is essential,” said Amara, 34, who works in the financial department of a car dealership. “I have been robbed every way imaginable.” Once, thieves abducted her in her car at gunpoint and made her pull money from two bank machines before freeing her. Another night, as she waited in her car at a red light, a gunman stole her wallet as witnesses silently stood by. The last straw came when she was leaving work in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Suddenly, a boy slammed a stone through her window and grabbed for her purse. She took her foot off the clutch and crashed into the car ahead of hers. She clung to the purse and the thief ran away. She arrived home, trembling with fear. Soon after, she became pregnant, and she and her husband decided to buy a used armored car. “If the government can’t keep me safe,” Amara said, “then I have to go out and look for that security on my own.”