A Cuban who worked for ten months as a manager of a warehouse in Sancti Spíritus has been sentenced to ten years in prison for embezzling about 200,000 pesos in products that he illegally removed from the establishment.
The events occurred at the La Riviera warehouse, belonging to the Base Business Unit (UEB) South of the Municipal Commerce Company of Sancti Spíritus.
An article published by the official media Escambray detailed that during the oral trial it was demonstrated that the accused - whose identity has not been disclosed - "illegally appropriated 24 food and industrial products, including regulated rice, raw and refined sugar, black beans, salt, bags of powdered milk, cleaning products, and more than 6,000 liters of kerosene."
He also stole alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, including cans of beer and bottles of soda, as well as cigarettes intended for sale to the public.
As a result of these events, the Municipal Commerce Company of Sancti Spíritus suffered an economic impact amounting to 174,882 pesos at product cost prices. However, the authorities estimated that the actual damage is 200,127 pesos at selling prices to the public.
The massive theft caused a considerable impact on the clients of that warehouse, who were unable to receive all the products corresponding to the regulated family basket. Therefore, in accordance with the established procedure, a replacement of the items was requested from the Wholesale Food Company, and the sale was completed for them.
The Cuban -whose age has only been reported as 35- was accused of embezzlement in case 236 of 2023 of the First Chamber of Criminal Affairs of the Provincial People's Court of Sancti Spíritus.
After the evidence presented, in judgment 139 of 2024, the First Criminal Chamber of the Provincial People's Court of Sancti Spíritus "decided to sentence the defendant to 10 years of deprivation of liberty as the perpetrator of the completed crime of embezzlement, in addition to the corresponding accessory penalties."
The mentioned medium added that as civil responsibility, the accused will compensate for the material damage caused to the Municipal Commerce Company of Sancti Spíritus in the amount of 200,127 pesos.
Against the sentence issued in the first instance, the accused can file a cassation appeal before the Supreme People's Court, which, in such a case, will later issue the final verdict and declare the firmness of the sanction.
This embezzlement case is part of a broader landscape of corruption and theft in warehouses throughout the country, coinciding with the rampant scarcity and economic crisis that Cuba is experiencing.
In Sancti Spíritus, where only between January and August 2023, there had been 10 robberies with force and six cases of corruption registered.
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