SÃ O PAULO—A Rio de Janeiro criminal court on Tuesday ordered Brazilian mobile-phone companies to block the popular WhatsApp chat service after the social-media company allegedly failed to turn over messages sought by authorities as part of a criminal investigation.

The service, used by an estimated 100 million Brazilians, was shut down by early afternoon local time. This is the third time since December that the message application service, which is owned by Facebook Inc., has been blocked in Latin America's largest nation.

Judge Daniela Barbosa Assumpç ã o de Souza alleged in court documents that WhatsApp failed to comply with a legal order to intercept messages exchanged by individuals who use the service and who are under investigation. Ms. Souza also chastised the company for replying to her questions in English, which she said showed disrespect for Brazil and its laws.

"They're treating the country like a minor republic," she wrote.

WhatsApp's co-founder and CEO Jan Koum said in his Facebook page that he was shocked with the ban and noted the company is working to get the service back in Brazil. "It's shocking that less than two months after Brazilian people and lawmakers loudly rejected blocks of services like WhatsApp, history is repeating itself," he said.

In a written response, a representative for WhatsApp said the company doesn't have access to the information requested by authorities.

WhatsApp is the most-used messaging app in Brazil. About half of Brazil's 200 million people used its free text and voice messaging functions.

Brazilian WhatsApp service was blocked in May and also last December over similar disputes regarding information requests from Brazilian law enforcement. Those blackouts were quickly overturned by other judges.

In March, Brazilian federal police briefly detained the vice president of Facebook's Latin America operations, Diego Dzodan, for allegedly not complying with police requests to access WhatsApp messages linked to an organized-crime and drug trafficking case. Facebook at the time criticized the arrest and said the executive had no connection to the investigation

Write to Luciana Magalhaes at Luciana.Magalhaes@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 19, 2016 14:55 ET (18:55 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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