Those close to those detained in the police operation say the medications were a donation for Cuba
14ymedio, Havana, 4 June 2026 / Thousands of doses of more than 150 different medications were found by the Spanish Civil Guard and National Police in a house in Vilaboa, in Galicia, registered as the headquarters of the Cuban-Galician Association Haydee Santamaria. The blister packs include drugs such as Rivotril, Lexatin, and Lyrica – benzodiazepines used to treat anxiety – and alongside them were found more than five kilograms of cocaine, around five hundred packs of contraband cigarettes, hashish, more than 30,000 euros in cash, and several weapons, among them six shotguns.
According to local press reports, the association, founded in 2014, has had no activity since 2020, but its Cuban-born president is one of the nine people detained in the police operation, three of whom are already in custody. Those close to the woman argued that the medications had been found because they were donations for Cuba. However, investigators believe they were in fact being sold through an illegal network, and that the association’s president is the ringleader of the network, in which her son and another accomplice were also involved.
The association, founded in 2014, has had no activity since 2020, but its president is one of the nine people detained in the police operation
An official explained that as part of the investigations in Vilaboa, “a person was detected who was distributing narcotic substances in significant quantities” and who was operating in complicity with others in the municipality of Sanxenxo. As evidence gathering progressed, “it was possible to detect and identify the presence of two organised and highly active cells, belonging to a single criminal group, engaged in the sale and distribution of cocaine, hashish, and tobacco”, which also operated in the Pontevedra municipality.
Data from the investigations also indicate that the collective – which bears the name of a heroine of the Revolution – was established with the aim of bringing together Cubans living in Galicia, and had a significant presence in Vigo, where it came to concentrate 444 of the 2,518 people from the island living in the region.
On the island, 14ymedio has documented the sale on the black market of Alprazolam in the streets of Tulipan, in Nuevo Vedado; under the arcades of Carlos III and Reina, in Centro Habana; and at the Esquina de Tejas, in Cerro. The drug is hawked alongside loose cigarettes, sweets, lighters, and packets of adulterated coffee.
Translated by GH
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