A security camera recorded the forced entry of a young man into La Mixóloga, a private restaurant-bar located on L Street between 19 and 21, in El Vedado, Havana, during the early hours of Saturday morning.
The images, shared on Facebook by Pedro Lizardo Garcés Escalona, show the suspect behind the bar of the establishment at 6:49 in the morning, while the venue was still closed.
According to the public report, the individual "forced his way into the restaurant and stole several items from the place." The recordings from the closed-circuit camera, captured by an IMOU camera, allow the identification of the suspect as a young man of medium build, with short, curly hair, wearing a short-sleeved white t-shirt.
In the images, the individual can be seen behind the bar, surrounded by liquor bottles, a cash register, and a laptop. The robbery occurred nearly three hours before the business opened its doors, as La Mixóloga typically operates from nine in the morning to midnight.
Garcés Escalona made a call to the community: “If anyone knows him, can identify him, or has any information, please contact us.”
The case follows an increasingly common pattern in Havana: owners of private businesses installing security cameras and turning to social media to try to identify those responsible for thefts, due to the widespread perception that the police response is insufficient. Similar cases have been reported in Playa, Marianao, and Vedado itself in recent months.
The incident occurs in a context of acute public insecurity. The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing documented 2,833 verified crimes in 2025, which is a 115% increase compared to 2024 and a 337% increase compared to 2023, with thefts being the most frequent category: 1,536 cases that year. Havana accounted for 398 of those crimes.
Just four days before the robbery at La Mixóloga, the U.S. Embassy in Havana issued a warning about a "widespread increase in crime in Cuba," linking it to the deterioration of economic conditions and noting a significant rise in thefts and car-related robberies in the capital.
Private businesses —restaurants, cafés, and small enterprises— have been a recurrent target of this type of nighttime or early morning robbery, a trend that has intensified as the economic crisis worsens living conditions on the Island after more than six decades of dictatorship.
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