• A Brazilian consumer defence watchdog has raided shops in the country’s capital and seized over 100 of the latest iPhones.
• Brazil and Apple are currently embroiled in a legal battle over the fact that the latter isn’t including charging cables with its latest iPhones.
• A judge has called these actions by the watchdog an “abuse of power” as Apple is still allowed to sell the devices until the final ruling in the case has been decided.

The largest Latin American country is bringing some of its order and progress to local iPhones, according to a new report from the Brazilian publication Tecnoblog (article in Brazilian Portuguese).

Brazil’s Institute for the Defence of Consumers (Procon-DF) has reportedly seized, “hundreds of iPhones in different retail stores in Brasilia”, the country’s capital.

The seizures are part of the so-called “Operation Discharge” that emerged after the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJPS) banned the sales of iPhones that ship without battery chargers.

Brazilian laws require the sale of smartphones with chargers, but Apple has stopped shipping charging cables with iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 boxes.

The Cupertino, California tech giant has made the so-called accessory available for an extra amount for those users who need one, but this doesn’t fly in Brazil, apparently.

This decision led to Apple’s Brazilian arm being fined over R40 million by the ministry.

Further, the MJPS told the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to cancel the registration of the iPhone 12 devices in an effort to remove the product from the market if Apple did not comply.

Well, Apple hasn’t complied, and Brazil’s anti-consumer action watchdog’s latest attempt to force Apple’s hand is by literally taking iPhones off the shelves. Brasilia-based shops of the Claro, Vivo, Fast Shop and iPlace-brands have had iPhone 11s up until iPhone 14s taken by Procon-DF.

This crackdown on iPhones is surprising because according to Brazil’s MacMagazine, the final ruling on the court case between Brazil and Apple on the charging cables has yet to be handed down and Judge Diego Camara Alves has allowed iPhones to be sold until this ruling.

It seems that there is an inter-governmental dispute about the situation, with the judge saying that the Procon-DF is abusing its power as Apple has requested the smartphones to still be sold and this request has been granted.

There is no information on where the seized devices will be kept, but reports indicate over 100 iPhones have been taken by the watchdog, which translates to millions of Rand worth of technology.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]