Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Martínez González, Deputy Chief of the Department of the Instruction Body of State Security of MININT, confirmed that authorities are conducting scientific examinations at highway checkpoints to detect if vehicles contain dielectric oil mixed with fuel.
The statements were made on the program Hacemos Cuba, broadcast by Cubavisión.
"We have taken a series of measures aimed at detecting vehicles that carry dielectric oil in their fuel tanks mixed with petrol," stated the official, who did not disclose the province where the operation took place due to ongoing processes.
The lieutenant colonel confirmed that so far, 105 vehicles have been inspected at road checkpoints. Of that total, 21 tested positive. "There are 18 vehicles seized in that province," he specified.
Private transporters would be the primary recipients of dielectric oil
"The main receivers in this case continue to be private sector transporters," the official said, although he clarified that this is not a generalization.
Regarding the validity of the expert evaluations, he was emphatic: "The examinations conducted, from a technical and forensic perspective, have full support, and also from a scientific standpoint. They are irrefutable evidence."
The prosecutor Moraima Velázquez Romero, head of the Department in the Directorate of Criminal Proceedings of the Attorney General's Office of the Republic, supported the legality of the seizure of vehicles as an ancillary penalty within the criminal process.
The magistrate Iliana Gómez Guerra, president of the Chamber of Crimes against State Security of the Supreme People's Court, added that "the expert opinion in the law of criminal procedures is one of the measures for verifying the crime, that is, it is a means of proof that serves to verify the crime."
The theft of dielectric oil and its impact on the energy crisis
The phenomenon affects 97 municipalities and all the provinces of the country, with an increase in reports compared to the previous year.
Dielectric oil isolates and cools transformers; when it is removed, the equipment becomes unusable and blackouts worsen. In the informal market, it is resold as a substitute for diesel because, when mixed in a specific proportion, it works as fuel.
The lieutenant colonel detailed specific cases. In Jagüey Grande, Matanzas, the theft of approximately one thousand liters of oil left a community of citrus farmers without electricity for over 30 days.
In Calimete, also in Matanzas, nine criminal incidents recorded between March and the early days of May affected 23 transformers, with 12 individuals involved and 10 in provisional custody.
At the time of the broadcast, nine transformers had been affected in the last few hours in Havana, including two in Arroyo Naranjo that supply the water source of Paso Seco, impacting areas such as Calabazar and the Berenguer neighborhood.
The activity has also claimed lives: two people were electrocuted in Santiago de Cuba while attempting to steal dielectric oil. They were 40 and 31 years old.
The applicable legal framework is Opinion 475 of the People's Supreme Court, from May 2025, which classifies these acts as sabotage. The penalties range from 7 to 15 years in the basic category and can escalate to 10-30 years, life imprisonment, or the death penalty in aggravated cases.
Magistrate Gómez Guerra specified that so far in 2026, "for the most part, sentences ranging from 9 to 20 years of imprisonment" apply to these cases, with 87% of the defendants in pretrial detention. Between 2025 and the first half of this year, the Public Prosecutor's Office opened more than 460 criminal investigations for crimes against the National Electric System.
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