Two violent thieves are brought to justice in Cuba.

The Criminal Chamber of the Provincial People's Court of Havana judged two Cubans guilty of violent crimes, accused of robbery with violence and illegal possession of firearms, used for intimidating purposes during the assault.

Both accused assaulted a man who was traveling on bus 613 and was approached by the thieves as he got off at a stop in the early morning hours. A witness's call to the number 106 alerted the police to the events and resulted in a patrol arriving at the scene.

"One of them put the knife to my stomach and told me to give him the chain and the phone, saying that nothing was going to happen. They told me: 'If you move, I'll stab you,'" the victim reported to the Cuban National Television News (NTV).

Once the police arrived at the scene, they decided to stop the bus route P6 in the Reparto Eléctrico and, with the help of the victim, identified and arrested one of the assailants.

The sanctions for the alleged crimes can reach up to 30 years of imprisonment, indicated the NTV report, which did not specify the amount of the penalties imposed on the accused.

The rising levels of poverty and social exclusion in Cuba are among the factors contributing to the increase in violence and crime. Insufficient salaries in the face of growing inflation, drug consumption, and mass migration push unscrupulous individuals to commit thefts to meet needs and motivations that require large sums of money.

Despite the propaganda efforts of the state media, the police forces and Cuban leaders themselves acknowledge that crime levels in the country have skyrocketed.

At the end of May 2023, a Cuban woman reported the theft of her cellphone aboard a bus in Havana, as became known on social media.

The theft happened when boarding the P6 bus at the University of Havana stop in Vedado, the victim's mother explained on Facebook.

A month earlier, an alleged pickpocket was discovered by passengers on the P8 route in Havana and handed over to the police, who proceeded to arrest him on the street.

The individual, who was not identified, resisted the officers of the National Revolutionary Police, as can be seen in a video published on social media.

In February 2022, a young Cuban woman was assaulted in Havana while walking home when two criminals approached her at gunpoint to take her purse.

"While I was on my way home, two guys got off the bus with me and followed me all the way home. They were talking and greeting those we crossed paths with, in their attempt to seem like they belonged to the area," the victim reported on her social media.

The young woman reported that the alleged thieves appeared to be young and were well-dressed. "One was Black, slim, of average height, wearing a black cap, a face mask, and a black sweater. The other was light-skinned, with yellow hair, also of medium height."

"One block before [getting to] home, the one in black mugged me. He threatened me with a gun and took my wallet. There are many reports of this couple attacking in different municipalities, please be careful," alerted the young woman, a resident of Aldabó, the neighborhood where the events occurred.