The Cuban police dismantled a network of million-dollar scams in the illegal buying and selling of foreign currencies in the city of Santa Clara, in Villa Clara, and arrested the four women allegedly involved.
From the end of 2023 until the moment of their arrest, the detainees carried out more than 15 scam operations, each for an amount ranging between 800,000 and over 1,000,000 Cuban pesos, as reported by Lieutenant Colonel Héctor de la Fe Freire, head of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) in the central city of Cuba, to the CMHW radio station.
The officer did not reveal the identity of the four women, but did mention that they are between 28 and 46 years old and reside in Santa Clara.
De la Fe detailed the modus operandi of the gang: two of the alleged scammers organized the buying and selling through social networks and arranged to meet their victims in specific homes in the Condado People's Council, primarily.
At the place, another woman was waiting for them, who received the cash -in local currency- from the person interested in buying dollars and left the room, supposedly to get the foreign currency and hand it over. Instead, she would leave the house through another door, where a fourth member of the network was waiting on a motorcycle, and they would escape from the place with the money.
The authorities received more than 15 reports of similar incidents, in which the descriptions of the physical characteristics of the detainees and the way they operated coincided, De la Fe stated.
Agents of the National Revolutionary Police and the Intelligence Directorate (DTI) thwarted the latest operation of the scammers and arrested them, while also seizing the two mopeds they were using to escape after committing the robbery, stated [source].
Three of the detainees had criminal and police records, and two were "wanted" for the same offense in the province of Cienfuegos.
De la Fe clarified that the women are being prosecuted by the Criminal Investigation Unit of the municipality of Santa Clara. "The investigation is aimed at identifying the victims and, as far as possible, recovering the defrauded money," he noted.
The head of MININT warned the population not to go to places with unknown individuals "to avoid being victims of fraud and getting involved in crimes related to the commercialization of foreign currency."
Last February, two men were arrested in Santa Clara for their involvement in several cases of fraud in the illegal sale of currency.
A month earlier, in the same city, the police arrested three men and one woman for multiple acts of fraud and robbery with violence linked to the sale of foreign currency.
Last month, a police operation was carried out in the capital of Villa Clara following reports of two million-dollar scams. One of the cases involved the sale of 22 parts of Cristal beer, with an estimated value of over 15 million pesos; while the other one involved food products, such as condensed milk and imported cookies, valued at more than two million pesos.
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