What is stolen the most in the Dominican Republic?
Vehicles, motorcycles, and firearms are among the most stolen items, according to complaints received by the National Police and published by the Ministry of Interior and Police on its Open Data portal over the last eight years.
In the public data, simple robbery, assault or robbery and breakage of residences and businesses were also highlighted as the three situations in which this type of misdeed usually occurs.
Vehicles and weapons
Starting with objects, or large material goods, it can be observed that the theft of motorcycles far exceeds that of four-wheeled vehicles. In 2025 alone, 5,812 stolen engines were reported from 491 cars.
This trend has been maintained throughout the period analyzed (2018-2025), with motorcycles averaging approximately 4,200 thefts per year and 531 for four-wheeled vehicles.
Apart from the fact that moving a motorcycle without the owner’s permission is easier than with a car, there is also the fact that, according to the General Directorate of Internal Taxes (Dgii), two-wheeled motor vehicles are the most used in the country, regardless of the province.
When it comes to firearm theft, the trend is different: there is a significant drop from 2018 to 2025.
In the first part of the period, up to 651 stolen firearms were reported, but by last year the number had fallen to less than a quarter of that. Although this significant drop in just eight years could be considered uncommon, the data does not show abrupt jumps that force us to be suspicious, only a gradual and steady decline.
Types of robberies and places
The data provided by the Ministry of the Interior and Police show that, since 2024, there has been a different categorization of robbery types, going from “general robbery” to simple robbery, assault, or robbery, and the rest are a series of “methods” that complete the statistics but in small portions.
In the case of “simple robbery”, that is, that which did not present violence or a weapon involved, it was the one with the highest number of complaints, with 47,911 last year, followed by assault or robbery, which does involve some type of action by the perpetrator, with 15,166 events.
The data presented by the Ministry of Interior and Police show the change from 2024, as previously mentioned. Apart from that date, there are categories such as: aggravated robbery, breakage (escalation), business breakage, residence breakage, and other aggravated robberies.
With regard to the geography of robberies in the country, the large urban centers hold the top positions: Santo Domingo, the National District, and Santiago together account for more than six out of ten complaints in the country, despite being only three of the 32 demarcations that make up the Dominican territory.
The provinces with the fewest reports of robberies are Independencia, Elías Piña, Santiago Rodríguez and Pedernales, totaling between the four 3,425 complaints (in their different categories) from 2018 to date.
