They show a video of the capture of a cell phone thief in Santiago de Cuba.

The moment when a cell phone thief in Santiago de Cuba was captured by the people was recorded and shared on social media.

The activist Lara Crofs shared on her Facebook wall the video, in which two men are seen taking the wrongdoer down the middle of the street and sitting him on the sidewalk, while the crowd around them shouts.

The offender, a young man, has his hands tied behind his back. He seemed dazed; according to a witness, he received several blows, although that was not seen in the video.

"If they don't catch it, the play works out perfectly," a frustrated woman can be heard saying.

The incident occurred on Friday on Carnicería Street.

According to independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta, local residents caught him while he was trying to snatch a phone from a young girl. They dragged him down the street and beat him until they took him to the nearest police station.

"Many people have applauded the lynching because they say that if they don't take justice into their own hands, these criminals will do the same thing again in a few days," he noted.

A resident revealed that the subject is from Havana and went to steal in Santiago, where he tried to hide in a house located on San Bartolomé between San Germán and San Francisco.

"He snatched it from an elderly man, and the neighbors acted quickly. The criminal had been wandering around the area for about three days, and in Havana, he specializes in that, in stealing, because he mentioned it," he detailed.

In recent months, several cases have been reported in Cuba where it is the citizens who are apprehending the aggressors, in a context marked by the rise in crime and ineffective police action.

This week, residents of Havana captured a thief and kept him lying on the ground for more than two hours, the time it took for the police to arrive and take him away.

According to the Facebook profile "La Tijera," the subject was caught and "matured" by the people.

In June, residents of the Arroyo Naranjo municipality in Havana captured a man whom they accused of snatching phones; they beat him and tied him to a pole.

The crime reporter Niover Licea (Nio reporting a crime) shared a video of the incident in which the young man was seen lying on the ground, with his hands tied behind him to a utility pole and his bare feet also bound.

He appeared to be in a state of semi-consciousness, with his eyes closed and obvious signs of having been beaten, with blood on his face and swollen lips and cheeks. Around him, people were insulting him, calling him shameless.