A Cuban resident abroad arrived on the island and within hours had a story to tell: the person responsible for preparing her welcome meal sent her the bone and kept the meat. She recounted this on Monday in a video posted on TikTok, where the user @danycubanitashop described the incident as "a total lack of respect."
According to her account, a friend organized a meal to welcome her: "pork loin with cassava salad." However, upon reviewing the order, they discovered the deception: the person who prepared or delivered the order decided to keep the meat and send only the bone.
"The person in charge of providing that service decided that she was going to send us the bone and would not leave the meat at her house because we didn't need it," the Cuban woman stated in the 31-second clip.
The problem went unnoticed at first because her friend "only checked the food from the outside" and didn’t detect the deception in time.
In light of what happened, the author issued a direct warning to those planning to travel to Cuba: "Don't trust anyone, break anything, and check your belongings thoroughly, because people are very shady."
He closed the video with a reflection on the financial effort required to fund a trip to the island: "Everyone knows that money doesn't fall from the sky, neither in China, nor in Japan, nor in the United States, and even less so in Cuba."
The incident is not an isolated case. Meat has become an almost unattainable commodity for most Cubans in 2026. Regime officials admitted in June that the rationed basket has not distributed chicken, oil, or yogurt at all this year, and the children in Havana have gone over two months without receiving meat or ground beef through the ration book.
The national production of pork collapsed by 95% between 2018 and 2023, and in the informal market, five pounds of this product cost around 5,400 Cuban pesos, equivalent to 78% of the monthly state salary. In this context, holding onto the best part of someone else's order reflects the economic desperation that the island is experiencing.
The experience of @danycubanitashop adds to a trend that is recurring on social media: Cubans in the diaspora returning to the island and documenting deceit, scams, and shortages. Another Cuban who returned from a trip also shared her negative experience in recent weeks, and the creator @melicapote recounted on July 3 that, of her 14 days in Cuba, “I can't tell you which day there wasn’t an incident.”
Similar reports of scams and spoiled food in restaurants and private businesses on the island have been documented on multiple occasions, from Matanzas to Havana, in a country where 96.91% of the population lacks adequate access to food, according to data from 2026.
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