The Police Arrest 78 People in Santiago de Cuba for Diverting Food

In the operations, a total of more than 60 tons of food was recovered, including soy flour, white sugar, rice and black beans.

14ymedio, Madrid, 21 May 2024 — Cuban authorities have detained a total of 78 people in the Guillermón Moncada port, in Santiago de Cuba, involved in a network of diversion of food intended for the basic family basket. Of them, 59 are in provisional prison while precautionary measures have been imposed on the remaining 19.

In the operation, the Police were able to recover a total of more than 60 tons of food, including 33 tons of soy flour, 22.6 of white sugar, 3.8 of rice and two of black beans, as reported this Monday by Canal Caribe. In a brief report in which agents from the Ministry of the Interior, a prosecutor and the vice-governor of the province, Waldis González Peinado, participated, the authorities repeated the exercise of divulging – increasingly frequent – the “zero tolerance” that they maintain with the “diversion of essential products.”

The Police affirm that the number of people who participate in the successive tasks of unloading, weighing and transportation in the port makes everything work like a fine-tuned clock, and that for any movement it is necessary to involve a majority of employees. “For the commission of acts of this nature, it is practically impossible to carry out the actions alone,” explains Major Erik Miguel Martínez Ferrales, who explained the operation.

“For the commission of acts of this nature it is practically impossible to carry out the actions alone”

According to prosecutor Luis Felipe