NEED TO KNOW
- A motorcyclist tried to grab Band Rio reporter Clara Nery’s phone moments before her live segment
- She held on tightly and managed to pull it back from the man’s hands
- Phone thefts jumped 27% in Rio de Janeiro this June compared to last year
Clara Nery, a reporter for Brazilian network Band Rio, was preparing to go live from the streets of Rio de Janeiro when a man on a motorbike zoomed past and tried to snatch her phone — all while the camera rolled.
“In the video, you can see the moment he puts his hand on my phone and takes it from me. Luckily, I was holding on tightly,” Nery said, as reported by her employer, Band Rio.
The assailant fled, but Nery was able to recover her phone shortly afterward and was unharmed.
“It was a real scare to go live,” Nery later wrote in an Instagram post, “But the important thing is that everything turned out okay!”
She went on to thank those who reached out: “Thanks for the messages and support from my coworkers, the Military Police, and the Civil Police.” She also called for the public’s help in identifying the suspect: “Let’s share his face, he wants to be known.”
Phone thefts in Rio de Janeiro surged by 27 percent this June compared to the same month in 2024, per The Nightly, citing the Rio de Janeiro Public Security Institute.
More than 2,300 phones were reported stolen in June 2025 — up from 1,808 the previous year.
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