A 38-year-old man, captured by the Police, confessed to the theft of at least ten electric motorcycles in Sancti Spíritus. The individual, a resident of Ciego de Ávila, took advantage of the negligence of the owners, who parked their motorines in the vicinity of the Camilo Cienfuegos Provincial General Hospital and in the Serafín Sánchez park.
According to a report of the newspaper Escambraythe Avilanian stole the vehicles between May and June of this year, dates in which this kind of theft increased considerably in the city of Sancti Spiritus.
The subject had adopted a mode of operation with which he managed to go unnoticed until his capture. “He was wearing long-sleeved shirts, glasses, a mask and a cap so that his face would not be captured by the multiple security cameras installed in the area,” the newspaper states.
The thief sat very early on one of the benches in the Serafín Sánchez park, to watch those who arrived by motorcycle at the Islazul hotel group’s reservations desk.
When choosing his victim, he made sure that the victim did not have a good view of his vehicle. Then he forced the rudder, moved the motorine of the place, activated the electrical circuits and left.
“He was wearing long-sleeved shirts, glasses, a mask and a cap so that his face would not be captured by the multiple security cameras installed in the area”
His luck changed on June 24, when a car from the Ministry of the Interior stopped him on the Central highway, aboard a recently stolen motorcycle. The man assumed that he had been discovered and tried to escape, hiding in the brush.
The authorities arrested him and transferred him to the Provincial Criminal Investigation Unit of Sancti Spíritus, where he recognized the robberies and reconstructed the events. He confessed that he took the motorcycles to Ciego de Ávila where another 35-year-old individual sold them on the black market. This second person involved was also arrested and taken to Sancti Spíritus.
Both were prosecuted for the crimes of robbery with force and theft of a continuing nature. According to investigations, the two detainees have criminal records. So far, two of the 10 stolen motorcycles have been recovered.
At the beginning of July, Major Yester Reyes Marrero, from the Police Headquarters in Sancti Spíritus, pointed out that this crime has a greater incidence in the capital of Sancti Spiritus, but also in the municipalities of Cabaiguán, Jatibonico and Trinidad.
“Without a doubt, the carelessness of the owners is the main cause that today favors the theft of electric mopeds in Sancti Spíritus. Most of their owners believe that their security system is sufficient to prevent theft, but the reality has shown that it is easily violated,” Reyes Marrero said on that occasion.
This type of events is not new, despite the fact that in January of this year, the Government described them as “fake news” or “events that occurred in previous years”
He also explained that, in most cases, the robberies occur because the owners park outside the authorized places, in order not to pay the tax.
The Cuban Penal Code punishes the crime of theft with one to three years in prison or with fines between 300 and 1,000 quotas, and even with both penalties combined.
This type of event is not new, despite the fact that in January of this year, the Government described them as “fake news” or “events that occurred in previous years,” which were intended to generate “a climate of instability and citizen insecurity.”
The robberies occur in broad daylight, on the street or in the houses themselves, as in the case of Omar Díaz Escaurido and Liss Echevarría González, a married couple who were victims of theft of two motorcycles from his own garage, in Nuevo Vedado, Havana, where they had a workshop. The couple was the victim of robberies on two occasions and the person responsible remained free, months later, despite having been denounced.
On July 4, the Sancti Spiritus professor Santiago Morgado, 62, was found dead inside a well in the area of Planta Cantú. His family assured that they killed him for stealing his motorcycle, which was sold for 200,000 pesos. Five people were arrested and two are identified as perpetrators.
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