The comments highlight the publicity given to a minor corruption case while crimes committed by high-ranking officials are being tried in secret.
14ymedio, Madrid, april 27, 2026 / Three state employees were sentenced to 10, 14, and 15 years in prison for embezzlement by the First Criminal Chamber of the Provincial People’s Court of Santiago de Cuba. In the same trial, a citizen was also convicted of illegal trafficking in Cuban pesos and foreign currency and ordered to pay a fine of 24,000 pesos in 600 installments of 40 pesos each.
The case was reported this Sunday by the provincial media outlet Sierra Maestra and replicated by Cubadebate in yet another example of the eagerness to publicize corruption affecting lower-ranking officials compared to the secrecy applied to those at a high level.
The defendants were, on one side, Amarilis Tellez Torres, an accountant, and Julio César Palacios Peralta, head of the accounting and finance group of a business unit belonging to the province’s Vegetable Canning Company. On the other side was María Luisa Creme Quiroga, an economist at the Rodolfo Rodríguez Benítez Credit and Services Cooperative.
The three agreed to split part of a 20 million peso bank loan that a bank had granted to the cannery. Tellez Torres and Palacios Peralta made four transfers to Creme Quiroga’s account totaling 5,175,504 pesos, and divided 3,986,504 pesos between themselves.
The three agreed to split part of a 20 million peso bank loan that a bank granted to the cannery.
In addition, Creme Quiroga used 1,195,434 pesos from his card to buy 2,000 US dollars from Kenly Hierrezuelo Tellez, who was accused of currency trafficking, for whom the sentence was one of the lightest provided for by the Penal Code, since he was only sanctioned with a fine.
The state employees were accused of repeated falsification of bank and commercial documents to commit embezzlement, crimes which the court found proven. The cannery workers have also been penalized with a ban on holding public office, and all must repay the full amount of money obtained through the fraud.
The note specifies, as usual, that “procedural guarantees and respect for due process enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba and in the Law of Criminal Procedure were fulfilled” and that this sentence may be appealed.
The news has generated countless comments in the press and on social media, where many have recalled the case of the former Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, convicted last year for espionage and corruption in two cases that were initially shrouded in secrecy and with the doors of the Supreme Court sealed off to prevent the presence of onlookers.
Never before have so many details been available about the crimes committed by Gil, not only beyond the sentence itself. The trials were conducted almost in secret because the acts were considered crimes against the security of the State.
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