The victim, who was bleeding heavily, managed to leave the apartment and knock at a neighbor’s home, where he told them who had attacked him
14ymedio, Havana, October 8, 2026 / George Urguelles, a Cuban American who lived in Cuba for part of the year, was murdered in the early hours of this Wednesday in his Havana home by his partner, a Cuban man who had already tried to rob him on previous occasions. Sources told 14ymedio that the deceased had filed a complaint against him, which he later withdrew at the request of the alleged killer’s parents.
The events took place in the Nela building, on Requena Street, between Carlos III and Maloja, in Plaza de la Revolución, where the victim had an apartment. Although he lived in the US, he spent periods of time on the island, in this building with his partner, who this Wednesday stabbed him, allegedly with the intention of robbing him. A theory circulating among the neighbors is that the attacker wanted to blame the murder on the widespread violence the neighborhood is suffering, since a group of thieves has been breaking into various homes in the area for days.
However, the victim, who was bleeding heavily, managed to leave the apartment and knock at a neighbor’s home, where he told them who had attacked him. Although witnesses say the ambulance arrived much faster than usual, the blood loss was so severe that he died without making it out of the building, where the police and forensic experts were working through midday.
Lists of what the attacker may have stolen have been circulating on social media. Journalist Niover Licea, who runs Nio Reportando Un Crimen [Nio Reporting a Crime], a page specializing in crime news, says that several watches, the cell phones, a gold chain, one million pesos in cash and more money allegedly kept in a safe disappeared from the premises. However, the information is not official.
Although witnesses say the ambulance arrived much faster than usual, the blood loss was so severe that he died without making it out of the building, where the police and forensic experts were working through midday
Ever since the State lost its exclusive control over information in Cuba, thanks to social media and the independent press that emerged with the rise of the internet, crime data has been revealing a country far more dangerous than had always been believed. Last year, according to a report by the Cuban Citizen Audit Observatory (OCAC), there were 152 murders on the island, compared with 167 in 2024 and 197 in 2023.
Cases of foreigners murdered on the island are infrequent, although at least two have come to light in recent years. In 2023, a French citizen of approximately 60 years of age was found dead in a privately rented apartment on the corner of Industria and Virtudes, also in Centro Habana. The man was suffocated in the early hours of the morning by two women with whom he had arrived at the house and who, as in this case, were trying to rob him. One of them was arrested a few days later at the La Coubre bus terminal, where she was attempting to flee to the east of the country, according to one of the building’s neighbors who spoke to 14ymedio.
More widely reported, because it became official, was the case of Canadian Antoinette Traboulsi, who disappeared in Varadero while spending a few days’ vacation on the island in November 2020. Her body was found by police buried a meter [about three feet] deep in the beach sand, with severe signs of violence. “At the morgue in Cuba they confirmed that it was my cousin’s body,” a relative told Canadian television.
According to a Martí Noticias report published in 2013, the number of foreigners murdered in Cuba had reached about fifty since the late 1990s.
Translated by GH
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