Cuba charges 30 over massive chicken heist
Cuban authorities have charged 30 people for stealing around 133 tonnes of chicken meat and selling it on the street in a major food heist in Havana.
Suspects are said to have taken 1,660 white boxes from a state facility in the capital and used the sale proceeds to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners.
The huge load weighs the same as around 50,000 fully grown chickens – although the thieves are said to have taken just the meat.
A Cuban state TV broadcast late on Friday said the chicken had been earmarked for the country’s “rationbook” system introduced after the late Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution to provide subsidised staples for all.
Rigoberto Mustelier, director of government food distributor COPMAR, said the quantity stolen was the equivalent of a month’s ration of chicken for a medium-sized province at current distribution rates.
The amount of chicken available via the rationbook has fallen sharply in recent years as economic crisis has brought scarcities of food, fuel and medicines.
Authorities did not say when the chicken theft took place, but noted it likely occurred between midnight and 2 a.m., when they detected fluctuations in the temperature of the cold storage facility. Video surveillance captured trucks transporting the chicken off site.
The 30 charged included shift bosses and IT workers at the plant, as well as security guards and outsiders not directly affiliated with the company, the TV report said.
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