A self-employed worker and two executives from the state company Cítricos Ceiba in Artemisa were arrested following the uncovering of a shocking multimillion-dollar fraud involving charcoal that left a debt exceeding 28 million pesos, as revealed this Wednesday by the official program Hacemos Cuba.
The investigation revealed how the individual, with a criminal record for fraud and tax evasion, managed to sign a contract with the state company to export coal, despite lacking productive capacity and infrastructure.
In January 2024, he received a 30 million pesos advance payment, which disappeared in just nine days. The money, coming from a bank loan granted to the company for working capital, was diverted to the personal expenses of the self-employed individual.
The coal never arrived and the fraud exposed a series of irregularities in the management of the state-owned company, as the contract was never discussed in the procurement committee, lacked legal advice, and was approved without any oversight.
“Today there is a debt of more than 28 million pesos”, admitted Cuba's Deputy Attorney General Reinaldo Cruz Rivera, who confirmed that the director of the company, his economist, and the self-employed worker are facing provisional imprisonment while the investigations continue.
While 30 million were granted to a phantom intermediary, the state-owned company was accumulating millions in unpaid debts with local producers. Farmers reported that the debt exceeded 50 million pesos as of May, jeopardizing planting and food supply.
Following the scandal, the company's management changed, and the new head assured that debts of over 66 million pesos owed to farmers have been settled and that an internal restructuring process has begun. However, the fraud revealed how the lack of internal control and the collusion between officials and private individuals further undermine an already crisis-stricken agricultural sector.
Pinar del Río, another mirror of corruption
The case of Artemisa was presented on the same television program that revealed the 15-year prison sentence for the former provincial director of Finance and Prices of Pinar del Río, accused of diverting state funds to friendly private companies, falsifying documents, and embezzling public money.
While that official and her accomplices are already facing lengthy sentences, in Artemisa the process is just beginning. Yet both scandals reveal a similar pattern, where we see state officials who, instead of safeguarding the people's resources, hand them over to private hands under dubious arrangements and without any oversight.
In a country where scarcity, unpaid debts to producers, and hunger define daily life, losing 30 million pesos in a ghost coal business is more than just a crime; it is, once again, a betrayal of the Cuban people.
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