14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2024 — About 5.75 quintals [1 quintal=220 pounds] of onion seeds of the Caribbean 71 variety and 40 pounds of cabbage seeds were stolen last August from the Frigorífico 800 warehouse of Sancti Spíritus. The official press, which revealed the event five months later, does so with its usual objective: to warn State workers that cases of corruption will not be tolerated. The eight involved, meanwhile, are awaiting trial and several years in prison, he emphasizes.
The local newspaper Escambray was precise in the profile of the thieves. “They had a bad social conduct, prone to the commission of criminal acts, and two of them had a criminal record for robbery with force.” Two others were the custodians of the refrigerator.
To steal the “very important booty,” six men entered the entity on August 28, cut the fence with a hacksaw, accessed the number nine refrigerated chamber and broke into a small vault that contained “onion seeds and other quality vegetables that would be used in the current cold season.” “They had bet on the expertise of two former workers of the entity, who acted as guides of the crime,” the media said.
They had bet on the expertise of two former workers of the entity, who acted as guides of the crime,” the media said
The penalties imposed on the custodians for “the crime of non-compliance with the duty to preserve the property of the State” and on the rest, accused of robbery with force – which is punished in the current code with seven to 15 years of deprivation of liberty – will not be slight. Their greatest transgression, the authorities say, was to steal what belongs to the population. For the time being, the six thieves remain in pre-trial detention, and the ’security agents’ were allowed bail.
“In truth, we feel very concerned, and I’m not talking only about monetary value, but about the fact that the producers were left without seeds, and in the end the population pays the price,” said Orestes Ramírez, director of the Base Business Unit Semillas Sancti Spíritus.
Another situation, however, influences the fact that there is no need to plant this season. “A large number of acres couldn’t be planted in the country, because the onion seed couldn’t be imported this year, given the limitations that we all know, and the Caribe 71 seed was going to be used,” he explained.
The seeds were reserved for the provinces of Pinar del Río, Mayabeque, Granma, Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila
As for the seeds, which were reserved for the provinces of Pinar del Río, Mayabeque, Granma, Camagüey and Ciego de Ávila, the Ministry of the Interior said it had recovered 5.34 quintals of the onion seeds and 26 packages of cabbage seeds. However, the potential planting of these products could not be carried out.
“The seeds were found in the weeds of a farm where they had hidden them without taking into account the refrigeration measures, so, once returned to the corresponding entities and the laboratory analyses done, it was determined that they had lost germination ability, which brought with it an impact of 1,508,204 pesos to the country’s economy,” Escambray reported.
Weeks ago, in December, the official press dusted off the file of a crime committed in 2020 in Sancti Spíritus. The punishment of the officials who facilitated the theft of more than 23,775 gallons of soy yogurt from the UEB Pasteurizadora contains the same moral as the article on the theft of seeds: the State will not tolerate outrageous behavior in its institutions.
On that occasion, among senior managers of the companies involved, including drivers and warehousemen, 15 people were prosecuted and several of them are currently in prison. The robbery occurred on August 28 in the Frigorífico 800 warehouse of Sancti Spíritus. (Escambray)
Translated by Regina Anavy
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