14ymedio, Havana, February 10, 2024 — Black and white images, a voice-over reminiscent of a crime drama and suspenseful music. Cuban Television spared no effort reporting, in the most dramatic way possible, the alleged theft of 133 tons of frozen chicken from the Havana Food Marketing Company. According to police, thirty defendants – eleven of them in preventive detention – are linked to the incident.
Some 1,660 boxes of chicken from the American producer Tyson were discovered missing by the company’s auditing department, setting off alarm bells among managers, the report stated. Rigoberto Mustelier, the company’s director, discovered that 26 tons were missing and immediately, he claims, ordered an inventory and called the police.
Investigators did their own calculations to determine how much was missing, looking at footage from warehouse security cameras and checking temperature fluctuations in the coolers. They informed Mustelier that the shortfall was much greater, 133 tons to be exact, according to Lieutenant Olga Panque, who also appeared on television.
The night of the robbery — Cuban Television did not specify exactly when it took place — several “suspicious vehicles” were seen circling the perimeter of the warehouse
“It could be the basic basket of a medium-sized province,” commented Mustelier, and the report then noted that, if the public does not have chicken in the coming days, it knows whom to blame. “Shift bosses, technical support staff and unemployed people outside the company. Employees were involved,” said Lieutenant Colonel Rafael Galera, claiming the culprits removed official labels and replaced them with “others that they brought in off the street.”
The night of the robbery — Cuban Television did not specify exactly when it took place — several “suspicious vehicles” were seen circling the perimeter of the warehouse. The police reported that each box went for 3,800 pesos on the black market and that they were sold in the homes of people who posed as self-employed workers or employees of small private businesses.
An individual’s profits from the heist, they estimate, ranged from fifty to 200,000 pesos “depending on the level of participation.” Also, the person who served as company director at the time of the theft was fired.
After eight home searches of those involved, investigators seized computers, air conditioners, televisions, the refrigerators where the merchandise was stored along with three million pesos and an unspecified amount of dollars.
The public prosector is charging those involved with embezzlement, robbery, bribery, failure to preserve state property and receiving stolen goods. If aggravating circumstances are taken into account, those most responsible for the incident could be sentenced to as much as twenty years in prison.
“It will be a harsh sentence because the crime warrants it,” said a representative from the public prosecutor’s office on Cuban Television. “The historic moment in which we are living, the product in question and the public call for a decision of this nature.”
The report makes no attempt to downplay the moral of the story. “Those who stole the chicken from Room 414 faced very low temperatures but that was noting compared to the icy coldness of their consciences when they harmed the public.”
“There has already been a noticeable change in warehouse security” since the those responsible were arrested, the report claims
“There has already been a noticeable change in warehouse security” since those responsible were arrested, the report claims. The company’s new director assured viewers that things are now being done differently. “There is stricter control,” he said.
Several inconsistencies in the story did not go unnoticed by the readers of Cubadebate, where the report was published. “How could the official – Mustelier – think there were 26 tons when there were 133? The difference is sizable,” wrote one reader ironically, concerned that the numbers were exaggerated.
Others were harsher in their critiques. Someone else wrote, “A 133-ton shortage that affects the basic family basket. What a ridiculous way to steal 133 tons of chicken. And they can stop calling it ’basic.’ The Ministry of Domestic Commerce recently stopped using that term. It’s just the family basket because it doesn’t meet even basic needs.”
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