Thummer

By Michael Harlow · Published November 4, 2026 · About 6 minutes to read

Motochorros: Phone Theft in Buenos Aires and Latin America

Spend a few days in Buenos Aires and you may hear the word motochorro. A few simple habits lower your risk, and a little setup makes a theft much easier to handle if it does happen.

The word joins moto (motorcycle) and chorro, slang for a thief in Argentina and its neighbors (Memo, August 2026). In Argentina it describes thieves who rob people walking down the street and escape on a motorcycle with their belongings (BBC Mundo via 24 Horas, 2014).

Five habits that matter most

  1. Step back from the curb before you use your phone. Snatches from motorcycles start from the street. Move toward a building wall, or step into a shop or café, to check a map or send a message.
  2. Don't wait at a corner or traffic light with your phone out. The UK government's Peru advice says to avoid using your phone at the roadside because motorbike riders may snatch it. That advice travels well.
  3. Use a wrist strap or crossbody lanyard. These won't stop a determined thief, but they may make a casual grab harder.
  4. Plan your route indoors. Look up directions before you leave, then glance at your phone less on the street. Earbuds can help with turn-by-turn audio.
  5. Never resist, chase or fight a thief. Phones can be replaced. Holding on while a motorcycle pulls away can get you badly hurt. Let it go, get somewhere safe, and start the steps below.

What the numbers say about Buenos Aires

The city publishes crime data through its Mapa del Delito (Crime Map). Its preliminary 2025 report (February 2026) recorded 5,587 robberies involving motorcycles in 2025, down 3% from 5,758 in 2024. Overall robberies fell 27% (50,069 vs. 68,392) and thefts without violence, called hurtos, fell 21% (49,641 vs. 62,771), figures also reported by the Buenos Aires Times, February 2026. The report does not break out phones.

Neighborhood data from the same Crime Map put Palermo first for recorded crimes in December 2025, with 437 crimes including 367 hurtos (El Cronista, July 2026).

One case shows how simple the pattern is. In November 2025, two men on a motorcycle tried to grab the phone of a visitor who had stopped her bicycle at a traffic light in Palermo to check it. Police later found ten phones in a raid linked to the case (C5N, November 2025). A stopped person, a phone in hand, a motorcycle in the street.

None of this is a reason to skip Palermo or anywhere else. It is a reason to keep your phone close and use it away from the curb.

Similar patterns across the region

Lima, Peru. Regulator OSIPTEL recorded 728,493 phone theft reports nationwide in the first half of 2025, down 8.3% from 794,129 a year earlier, though some Lima districts saw rises in 2024 (Canal N, July 2025). Canada's government warns that in Peru thieves on motorcycles may snatch purses, backpacks or phones (page updated October 2026).

Bogotá, Colombia. The City of Bogotá, citing city police, reported 3,096 phone theft complaints from January through the first week of February 2026, 15% fewer than the same period of 2025.

Santiago, Chile. T13 (November 2025) describes a rise in motorcycle phone robberies across Santiago-area districts. The national police report it covered found phones made up 95.7% of items these robbers took. The Santiago district had the most complaints so far in 2025 (85), ahead of Ñuñoa (26) and Providencia (17).

Mexico City. City police data obtained by Publimetro (May 2026) shows 6,961 pedestrian robberies in 2025, down from 8,065 in 2024. These cover all items, not only phones. Cuauhtémoc, the borough with the historic center and the Zona Rosa, ranks second for January 2018 to April 2026.

These figures cover different crimes and periods, so they can't be compared directly. Most are falling, Santiago's report points the other way, and the street habits above apply in all of them.

Before you travel: set up your phone

If your phone is taken

Our first-10-minutes checklist has the full version. In short:

  1. Get safe, then use another device. Borrow a phone or use a laptop at your hotel.
  2. Lock it remotely. On Android, go to google.com/android/find and choose Mark as lost. On iPhone, use the Find My app or icloud.com/find and turn on Lost Mode. Hold off on erasing: Apple says to try everything else first because it can't be undone, and Google says a factory reset permanently deletes your data. Don't go to the location on the map; give it to the police.
  3. Call your carrier and suspend your SIM so no one can receive your verification codes. With an Argentine line, you can call *910 from any phone to cancel the line and block the device, whatever your carrier (iProfesional, April 2026). The telecom regulator ENACOM runs the country's IMEI blocklist (Argentine government, 2018). If your line is from home, call your home carrier.
  4. Change key passwords, starting with email, banking and payment apps.
  5. File a police report. Your insurer may ask for it.

In Buenos Aires, the city's Tourist Police Station helps victims of theft, with interpretation in English, Portuguese, French, Italian and Japanese (city tourism site). The city's Spanish-language page lists a phone number, +54 11 5050-9260, and links a 24-hour Tourist Police WhatsApp service for lost passports or documents to the same number (+54 9 11 5050-9260). You can also report by calling 911, free and open 24 hours, or use the online and in-person options on the city's reporting page.

In Lima, OSIPTEL advises calling your carrier right away to block the line and phone, reporting at the nearest police station or through the National Police website, and registering the case with its Renteseg system so the phone can't be reused (Canal N, July 2025).

Anywhere, your embassy or consulate can help if your passport was taken too. Heading to Brazil as well? See our São Paulo and Rio guide.

Keep your phone away from the curb, set up remote locking before you leave, and if it happens anyway, let the phone go and follow the steps above.

← All articles