A Cuban resident in Spain had an unexpected experience while trying to do a good deed: returning a wallet he found on the ground at the metro exit to the police. The content creator known as Iván el Cubano shared this in a video posted on TikTok that sparked extensive debate within the Cuban and Latin community in Spain.
According to his account, upon leaving training, he found a wallet on the ground that was empty of money but contained someone else's identification documents: a NIE or DNI, a driver's license, and a disability card. "As a good Samaritan, I picked it up and thought, wow, this belongs to someone who must have dropped it, someone who lost it, but it also had a disability card, which means it's a person with disabilities, folks," he explained in the video.
He decided to take the wallet to a nearby police station close to his home, convinced that it would be a quick process. What he did not anticipate was what happened upon his arrival.
The on-duty officer asked for his identification documents before accepting the delivery and instructed him to go inside and take a seat. "I arrive at the police unit, a police officer attends to me; he was standing at the door. I handed over the documents and said, 'Look, I just found this here at the metro exit,' and he tells me, 'Give me your documents,'" Iván recounted.
What followed was a wait of almost two hours inside the police station. "I was held there, almost standing there, I mean, inside the unit for almost two hours just for handing over some documents," he said, visibly frustrated.
Iván described the experience as humiliating. "After all, what you are doing is returning something or handing over something that someone lost, and they treat you like a criminal," he stated.
What Iván experienced actually corresponds to a standard administrative procedure in Spain. The Organic Law 4/2015 on Citizen Security empowers agents to request the identification of any person in the course of their duties, including those who voluntarily visit police stations. The usual protocol when receiving lost items with documentation includes recording the finder’s information, which requires asking for their identification.
However, for someone unfamiliar with the system, the procedure can be surprising and intimidating, as happened to this Cuban who arrived in Spain searching for a better future and encountered a bureaucracy he did not anticipate.
Iván's experience is not isolated. There are many Cubans residing in Spain—especially in Madrid—who share on social media their struggles with institutions and procedures, reflecting the integration challenges faced by many migrants. A Cuban who recounted her experience obtaining criminal records in Spain also described an exhausting and bewildering process.
Iván ended his video with a "moral" that generated 208 comments: "When you find someone's documents here in Spain, either mail them or throw them in the trash; don't give them to the police because they will stop you, and you'll have a bad time as if you were a criminal."
It is worth noting that depositing found documentation in a mailbox for processing is, in fact, a valid alternative that is informally recognized in Spain for returning documents without going through the police station, although the option of throwing them in the trash could potentially lead to legal consequences.
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