HOLGUÍN, Cuba. – “They killed a partner of mine two months ago to take away his motorbike. It’s not that they assault you, it’s that first they kill you and then search to see what you have.” Carlos Manuel Batista, resident in the Vista Alegre neighborhood, in the city of Holguincrudely defines a recent crime.
The fear of being robbed or assaulted has changed the routine of Holguín families and has forced them to live in a permanent state of alert. “After 6:00 in the afternoon, I don’t leave my house,” says Yamila Velázquez, from the Lenin neighborhood. “My children know that, if they go out, they keep the cell phone or hide it, because taking it out on the street is like putting up a sign that says ‘Steal me.'”
Yamila’s sense of danger coincides with the warnings published by foreign diplomatic missions. In October 2025, the US Embassy in Cuba warned about an increase in robberies and violent events on the Island and called for intensifying personal and home security measures.
The diplomatic mission alluded to robberies with knives, minor attacks on Embassy vehicles and home invasions with theft of property. He also stressed that constant blackouts encourage criminal activity.
The same feeling of helplessness is felt by Pedro López from Holguín. “To steal a motorbike or a bicycle, criminals will do anything. Also for a gold chain, a ring, a cell phone. And now the criminals are between 16 and 25 years old,” he points out.
For thieves, the night is no longer their only refuge. Now they steal in natural light without having to hide their identity. “Criminals are not afraid and they are young. I know a man who at 12:00 noon they put a knife to his neck and took away his motorbike. 12:00 noon. Not with his face covered or anything, just in his face,” says Ernesto Tamayo.
In the peripheral neighborhoods, theft has become systematized. Rogelio Cruz, from the Alcides Pino neighborhood, points them out without hesitation: “Four ‘malacambios’ who have robbed the entire neighborhood gather around my house.”
Independent statistics confirm how crime is sweeping the country. The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit (OCAC) reported 1,319 crimes verified between January and June 2025, almost five times more than in the same period of 2023 and more than in all of 2024, which is equivalent to 7.3 crimes per day, a historical record.
Even the official press of Holguín has echoed the increase in criminal behavior. “I read the ‘Trapped’ section of the newspaper every Saturday. Now in the that is published ‘We caught someone who was stealing cell phones, another who broke into a house at night, two who robbed a motorbike’. That type of news every week gives you the idea that robberies and assaults remain constant,” says Jorge Luis Méndez, a resident of the Pedro Díaz Coello neighborhood.
The criminal acts that occurred in municipalities and state entities and the search for solutions to combat them were the topics analyzed in a “Provincial Plenary on Crime” in Holguín. At this meeting, data came to light that confirms the increase in criminal activity. It was announced that during the month of September 2025, 1,672 crimes were reported, a greater number than that reported in August, and seven municipalities increased their reporting. Of them, the most complex situation is found in the Calixto García, Moa and Sagua de Tánamo municipalities. In addition, an increase in robberies, homicides and crimes against livestock were reported.
The judicial and penitentiary system is pointed out by citizens as part of the problem, because it is incapable of retaining or rehabilitating offenders. Osmany Velázquez, from the Ibero-American cast, criticizes the lightness of the sentences that allow thieves to return to the street in a minimum amount of time.
“At night my neighbor’s motorbike that was inside the house was stolen. About 15 days later the police caught the thieves, but they didn’t say who they sold the motorbike to; so it was lost. They gave each of them four years in prison,” says Velázquez.
“Prison is a revolving door, criminals enter from one side and leave from the other,” says Joel Peña. “They tell you that they got four years, and after six months you see them on the corner selling what they stole. There is no respect, prison no longer scares anyone.”
The root of crime is in the economic ruin that the country is going through. The Cuban economist Pedro Monreal He assured in November of last year that, if the World Bank’s international extreme poverty line ($2.15 per day) were applied to Cuba, 100% of the country’s state workers would fall into the category of extreme poverty.
In the “Provincial Plenary of Crime” the case called “Border”a fact reported on September 1, 2025 in Limoncitos, town of Maceo, in the Holguín municipality of Cacocum, where a 28-year-old custodian, a dairy farm worker, had agreed with 12 other people to steal 61 cows from the entity. The criminals on horseback wearing dark clothing, balaclavas and armed with three cartridge shotguns, bullets and several edged weapons recognized the incident.
Added to the lack of food and money is the energy crisis that paralyzes the country and darkens the streets. Jorge Piñón, the principal researcher at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, warned that the situation in Cuba is “extremely critical” and collapse would be imminent if the regime fails to obtain fuel.
