Cuba charges 30 over theft of 1,600 boxes of chicken to buy fridges, laptops, televisions
- Thieves took the meat from a state facility in Havana and sold it to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners, according to state media
- Amid food scarcities, the quantity stolen was the equivalent of a month’s ration of chicken for a medium-sized province, said a government official
Cuba has charged 30 people for stealing 133 tonnes of chicken and selling them on the street in a rare major heist at a time of food shortages in the communist-run nation.
Thieves took the meat, in 1,660 white boxes, from a state facility in the capital Havana, and used the sale proceeds to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners, according to a Cuban state TV broadcast late on Friday.
The chicken had been earmarked for Cuba`s “ration book” 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 ration book has fallen sharply in recent years as economic crisis has brought scarcities of food, fuel and medicines.
Many subsidised products reach the populace days, weeks or even months later than scheduled, leaving people who make an average wage of 4,209 pesos a month (US$14 at the informal exchange rate) to seek other ways to make ends meet.