14ymedio/Yucabyte, Havana, 22 May 2024 — El químico (the chemical), the fashionable synthetic drug in Havana, slowly takes over the Cuban underworld. The possibility that Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, El Cangrejo (The Crab), grandson and bodyguard of Raúl Castro, is the man behind its manufacture and traffic – in increasingly vast networks – was one of the rumors that circulated in April and that the collaborators of 14ymedio and Yucabyte registered on the Island.
The consumption of el químico among young people has left deplorable scenes, documented in several recordings on social networks. In several of them, symptoms of paranoia, dislocation and violence are noticeable in drugged people. Some have tried to injure themselves. A rumor insists that more than 20 young people are under medical surveillance in Havana for their addiction and – according to a health official who did not identify himself – there are no supplies to treat them.
The authorities have recognized that el químico is increasingly circulating on the Island, although they have not given details about its composition and have accused emigrants of being the ones who contribute to the entry of drugs into the country. The silence has generated the suspicion that some member of the upper elite, such as Rodríguez Castro, pulls the strings of its distribution or takes advantage of his position to import it from some allied country of the Island, such as China or Russia.
Several users say that El Cangrejo was alarmed by a police operation that dismantled several distribution sources of the “el químico”
Several users say that El Cangrejo was alarmed by a police operation that dismantled several distribution centers of el químico in Jagüey Grande, Matanzas. According to a rumor, Rodríguez Castro was the owner of at least part of the network, whose merchandise was confiscated from two brothers who, allegedly