The residents of Luyanó, in Havana, say that his name was Arístides and he lived on Manuel Pruna street, on the corner of Municipio. This Tuesday, he woke up dead at the doors of the nearby store on Melones Street, between Enna and Guasabacoa, where he had been queuing for several days to try to buy.
Hours after the old man’s body was taken away, the establishment was the subject of a police operation made public on networks by the government of the municipality of Diez de Octubre.
Without alluding to the death of Aristides, a post on Facebook he reported, with images, of the merchandise they found “held” in the store. Among them, 11 packages of chicken “with proof of payment” that, according to the clerks, “belong to the LCC”, that is, to the agents of the groups of the so-called “fight against coleros”.
They also found “6 packages of picadillo and 11 bottles of Sedal shampoo”, in addition to three other bottles of shampoo, three bottles of conditioner, valued at 160 pesos each, three “wheels” of H. Upmann cigars and 1,190 pesos inside a drawer in the store manager’s office. In it they also detected “a lack” of 6,129 pesos “corresponding to the sale made on October 31, 2022.”
“You also know that what you found is a small part of everything that goes out the back door”
“All the confiscated products were sold to 5 people from the population, including a mother with a child under 1 year old,” detailed the publication, which was immediately filled with comments.
Most of them attack, precisely, against the troops deployed to fight coleros, a strategy deployed in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic to fight the hoarders, for which personnel from the Ministry of the Interior and organizations at the service of the regime (such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution or the Federation of Cuban Women) were employed, and which was never cancelled.
“You also know that what you found is a small part of everything that goes out the back door,” says user González Monyk. “There the manager, the economics, the shopkeeper, the floor cleaner, etc. steal, and they take it out with the customers who buy daily, or behind at the wrong time. I know you know it, but over and over again I repeat it: It is this system that does not work and will never work”.
“The LCCs have been a shame,” says Lissette López. “In an infinite hell they have turned the lives of the citizens who work every day. With absolute impunity they mistreat and divert what belongs to the people.”
“That man had been in line for days without being able to buy, because what they have there is a nerve”
Tamara Valdéz Pérez agrees with her, who elaborates, about another business, located on Espadero street, La Víbora, in the same municipality of Diez de Octubre: “The chicken has just arrived, they tell you that it only arrived for 20 people. In your face you see the motorcycles come and go taking chicken. That’s why they keep the queue a block away. If there is no more covid, what’s the point?
“Today was horrible in Espadero,” says Nydia Rodríguez. “People marking for days, the chicken arrives, 20 people, 15 vulnerable, and the chicken in the dependents’ backpack.”
The list displayed in the comments of the stores in which Havanans lament the corruption of the “LCCs” is long: 15 and Concepción, in the Lawton neighborhood; The Danube, in El Vedado; the Cupet de Lagueruela, in La Víbora; the trade of 84 and 41, in Marianao; Shell and Factory, in Luyanó; Cupet de Luco and Calzada de Luyanó; 15 and Dolores, in Arroyo Naranjo, where they also complain about the El Eléctrico cast.
All in all, the commentators celebrate the operation in Melones, although they point out that “it should have been carried out periodically.”
“A person had to die for them to come to investigate,” a Luyanó neighbor tells 14ymedio. “That man had been in line for days without being able to buy, because what they have there is a nerve.” Indeed, it is not the first time that the establishment on Melones Street has been the object of complaints by the population, who for months is a witness of detours .
The residents of the place, as they left recorded on social networks, are now looking for the dog that Arístides was accompanied by, who walked with a cane and, according to another neighbor, had “a son who lives far away” as his only family.
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