Madrid/Eleven people are detained in Pinar del Río for the theft of vehicles with violence, according to a note from the Ministry of the Interior published last Monday on Telepinar. The information focuses, as is usual in official reports, on the “dismantling” of the gang and the successful recovery of some equipment, including a V-8 truck from the Los Palacios Agroindustrial Grain Company, “which was loaded with cassava.”
“The driver made a stop at his house and the criminals took the opportunity to steal the vehicle,” the note states. This theft affects the company that owns the land leased by the Vietnamese company Agri VMAwhich has been exploiting rice lands in the town since the beginning of the year and has achieved product yields much higher than those of its Cuban peers.
It is not the only state company affected by the misdeeds of the gang, which also took over a jeep from the Agricultural Transport Company located in Herradura and another from the Camilo Cienfuegos Genetic Livestock Company, in Consolación del Sur. In this last municipality they also stole a Jagua motorcycle owned by the State.
It is not the only state company affected by the misdeeds of the gang, which also took over a jeep from the Agricultural Transport Company located in Herradura.
“The drivers [de los vehículos robados] They parked them near their houses to spend the night and from there they stole them, forcing the doors and removing the cables from the car to tear them off,” reads the Ministry’s note. It also mentions the assault on the Lada 1600 of a private individual who was parked on a street in the city of Pinar del Río.
Osniel Miranda Curbelo, second head of the Provincial Criminal Investigation and Operations Unit, told the official press that the detainees all came from the neighbor, but they traveled to the province to commit the crime and then returned to Pinar del Río to sell what was stolen. The truck with cassava was, for example, found in Nueva Paz (Mayabeque), the car in Havana, one of the jeeps in Artemisa itself and the other was disassembled into pieces.
The buyers, who logically acquired the vehicles without their pertinent documentation and at prices much lower than those on the market, had the objective of “modifying them to be able to use them or take parts and pieces and resell them, to obtain greater profits,” the official explained.
Seven of the detainees are accused of crimes of robbery with force and theft, while the remaining four are charged with “reception.”
Theft crimes have grown exponentially in Cuba in recent times, driven above all by the worsening of the economic crisis. Added to this is the forced change in the communication policy of the authorities, who have been forced to give details of some crimes that previously – in the absence of independent media and social networks – they managed to keep secret.
Seven of the detainees are accused of crimes of robbery with force and theft, while the remaining four are charged with “reception.”
Knowing that this option is no longer possible, the regime has chosen to echo some of the most striking resolved cases, trying to convey to citizens a feeling of tranquility in the face of a Police that acts.
However, it seems to be far from achieving it. According to one survey from the magazine Bohemia At the end of last year, 92.3% of people interviewed in this regard considered that crime had increased greatly in Cuba, and 48.9% had been direct victims in the last six months. A third did not trust the authorities to report the crime and, of those who did, 73.4% “saw no solution.”
Furthermore, the statistics Crime rates doubled in 2024, a year that closed with 1,317 reported crimes, more than three a day and 668 more than in 2023: a growth of 50.7%, according to a report prepared by the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit (OCAC) and Cuba Siglo 21. The data presented in the document indicated that the majority of the reports are for robberies, with a total of 880.
