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The Cuban police arrested a shift supervisor from the Barreras solar park, located in the capital municipality of Guanabacoa, accused of stealing more than 40 meters of electrical cables from the facility, according to a report by the Ministry of Interior’s page “El Cubano Fiel” in a Facebook post.
The man, identified as the group leader of the park workers, took advantage of his trusted position to cut and steal the cables, the publication reports.
The theft had direct consequences on electricity generation: 24 solar panels were out of service for several hours, stopping their contribution to the National Electric System (SEN).
The park administration filed a complaint with the police, who began an investigation and conducted a search of the suspect's home. There, they found and seized the stolen cables as evidence.
The case occurs during a time of extreme electrical crisis in Cuba. This Monday, the SEN reported an availability of only 1,150 MW against a demand of 2,720 MW, with 1,520 MW affected during the daytime and a projected 2,080 MW of impact during the evening peak, according to data from the Cuban Electric Union.
The Barreras photovoltaic park is part of the regime's strategy to expand solar power generation. The installation has received visits from high-ranking officials, including Esteban Lazo, president of the National Assembly, and Liván Izquierdo Alonso, first secretary of the Communist Party in Havana.
This robbery is not an isolated case. In November 2025, Yeraldo Lantigua Padrón was arrested in Colón, Matanzas, accused of stealing 700 meters of cable, four batteries, and 178 connectors from a solar park, and was charged with the crime of sabotage.
In September 2025, the police arrested those responsible for the theft of more than 50 beams and panels from the Juan Pérez II Photovoltaic Park in Niquero, Granma.
In March 2026, a court in Ciego de Ávila sentenced two men to nine and seven years in prison for stealing approximately 50,000 screws intended for the assembly of solar panels, classifying the crime as sabotage under Article 125 of the Penal Code.
This month, the theft of a solar panel from ETECSA's photovoltaic system in Santiago de Cuba was reported, leaving more than 560 users without service.
The that the Cuban energy crisis has a "systemic and increasingly significant" impact on health, water, food, transportation, and telecommunications, and that the island has gone more than three months without sufficient fuel. In this context, thefts from solar infrastructure represent an additional blow to an electrical system that is already operating at its limit.
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