Sarai, a 60-year-old woman from Santiago with 42 years of work experience, tearfully reported to independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada that her home has been the victim of repeated thefts for eight consecutive years, with the Police having resolved none of the cases.
The testimony was published on Facebook and went viral within a few hours, turning the case into a symbol of the institutional neglect experienced by thousands of Cubans.
"I have been robbed in my house for eight consecutive years, year after year, and the police have never responded," declared Sarai, visibly affected.
The most recent incident occurred in the early morning of April 30, when the thieves entered through the kitchen window, cut the hose of the gas cylinder, and took their cellphone with charger and active SIM card, a wall fan, some young chickens, their work bag with documents, and their bank cards.
Sarai called the emergency number since four in the morning without receiving a response until five, when they provided her with numbers for the Micro 9 Unit.
The police arrived the next day with two officers on motorcycles, without forensic experts, without a tracking dog, and without forensic equipment.
The agent identified as Orlando responded to the question about the absence of a dog with a phrase that summarizes the state of the institutions: "If there are no animals in the zoo, how are we supposed to have a dog?"
The same agent asked the woman why she didn't "get married," instead of focusing on the investigation.
Sarai claims to have identified the thief and has two witnesses who saw him leave her house, but the police are still not taking action.
"The police are corrupt. Here, corruption is too widespread. We have no security even in our own homes," he stated.
Another official from the Versailles delegation promised her a solution, but he never called; when Sarai found him at the Micro 9 Unit, he claimed that he had indeed contacted her and that he had to take care of his son who was having eye surgery.
Meanwhile, the woman had to visit several banks - BANDEC and BPA - as well as the ETECSA offices to cancel her stolen cards and try to block her phone line, being sent from one institution to another without resolving anything in a single day.
Sarai bitterly denounced the double standards of the Police: when a municipal assembly president of the Party was robbed, the case was resolved in 12 hours; when the daughter of a colonel was robbed in El Caney, everything was found within 24 hours.
"As one is not a daughter, as one is nothing of their petal, then they do not care about one's thefts," she stated.
The emotional impact has been devastating: "I lost the desire to eat, I lost the desire to bathe, I lost the desire to live, because you know what it's like to be in my house and not be able to hear anything, nor see anything."
The case falls within a wave of criminal activity that has escalated in Cuba: the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing recorded 2,833 verified crimes in 2025, a 115% increase compared to 2024, with 1,536 thefts as the predominant crime. Santiago de Cuba was the fourth most affected province, with 323 crimes that year.
"Sad that the people have to share their problems with a journalist because those who are supposed to solve them have chosen to ignore them," wrote Mayeta Labrada when publishing the testimony.
Filed under: