A suspected phone thief was captured in Santiago de Cuba.

A young man who, according to witnesses, stole a cell phone from an elderly person in a crowded area of the city of Santiago de Cuba, was captured this Wednesday by residents of the area, although they did not hand him over to the police.

The alleged thief's arrest took place on 8th Street near the iconic Trocha Avenue, in the Mariana de la Torre neighborhood of the eastern city, as indicated by a source to the journalist Yosmany Mayeta.

"He took a phone from an elderly person on 8th Street," said the person who reported the incident.

In the video published by Mayeta on her Facebook profile, we see the alleged thief - barely a teenager, judging by the images - being led by a man who is holding him tightly by one arm, while another young person accuses the alleged perpetrator of the theft, and he seems to be defending himself against the accusations.

However, according to Mayeta, the "wrongdoer" was released after returning the phone and "did not even reach the hands of the police".

When asked by the reporter why he was released instead of being handed over to the authorities, the source replied: "Why bother, they'll just put him in jail for a few hours and then you see him out on the street stealing again," a practice that has become common among the Cuban police and exposes the neglect and lack of efficiency of the institution that should ensure public order and safety.

"We have published incidents like this several times on our website, but even if the police do not act correctly, the right thing to do is to call them and hand over the item, along with a report that must be filed against the criminal," Mayeta argued.

The reporter asked his followers for information about who the perpetrator of the robbery was and who the victim was, in order to clarify the incident further.

In the comments, people expressed their outrage over the growing wave of criminal incidents in the city, the proliferation of criminals - many of them young - who steal and profit from the belongings of people who work to obtain them, and the police's ineffectiveness in acting against crime.

Incidents like this are not exclusive to the province of Santiago de Cuba, and social media attests to this, with frequent reports of cases of cell phone theft and other goods, on the streets, in public transportation, and inside homes, all across the country.

In recent times, citizen action has prevented thefts of phones from being carried out or going unpunished in Havana, Las Tunas, and other provinces, due to a lack of a more assertive response from the authorities.

However, in a recent broadcast of the television program Round Table on the "fight against crime," the official media tried to give a different image of what is happening in the country by reporting on the arrest and prosecution of a man who tried to steal a cell phone on a bus in the Cuban capital.

Upon being discovered, the individual brandished a knife in an attempt to escape but was apprehended. Subsequently, he was tried for the crimes of robbery with violence and illegal possession of weapons, and the prosecution requested a combined sentence of 10 years of imprisonment, in addition to the payment of over 8,000 pesos for the damages caused to the cellphone.