Two panels from the photovoltaic system installed in a telephone cabinet of the Telecommunications Company ETECSA in the Santa Bárbara neighborhood, Santiago de Cuba, were stolen during the early hours of Friday to Saturday. This incident left nearly 900 users of telephone and data services without energy backup.
According to a report by Luis Enrique Torres Almarales, head of the Group in the Investments Department of ETECSA in the province, on Facebook, the affected equipment is located on Calle 5, between Enramadas and Escario, next to the Miguel Ángel Cano primary school, known as "la 45".
"Photovoltaic system that provided backup and continuity to the telephone services of nearly 900 clients, during the challenging energy situation facing our country," wrote Torres Almarales, who shared photos showing the supporting metal structure with the missing panels.
Although he did not identify the thieves, he emphasized that everyone knows who they are: "those young and not-so-young individuals who are unemployed, hanging out on street corners, playing, with time to think about making money easily since they feel invincible."
The executive noted that he had never seen so much crime in Cuba before: indiscipline, thefts, and violence, amid widespread apathy.
“Thieves and murderers stab in broad daylight to steal a phone or a scooter; they have no respect for anyone's life or property. In the end, they do it because they know they will go to a prison where they take a vacation, rest, and are cared for and fed by the society they despise and destroy,” he criticized.
He also called for the restoration of the old "vagrancy law," which was applied to those who did not work. "Today, there are many who have no employment ties and want to live like princes, sleeping during the day and partying at night, living off their wits."
And he went further by demanding the imposition of the death penalty: "I believe that the death penalty must be reinstated; there can be no more leniency towards those who do not want to work, who live by stealing and killing the working people."
"People are feeling panic, and it is not fair that this is happening. (...) It is time to take real action, seriously, the speeches are no longer enough," concluded Torres Almarales in his post.
Last week, this engineer reported vandalism with stones against the solar panels of the photovoltaic system installed at the telephone cabinet number two in the Flores neighborhood, located in the yard of the School of Arts and Trades in Santiago de Cuba.
The photos accompanying the complaint published on Facebook showed a stone on the photovoltaic panels mounted on an elevated metal structure, surrounded by barbed wire and cyclone fencing.
"We are witnessing a pure act of sabotage, a malicious action aimed at causing damage and harm to the little we can achieve for the benefit of society," stated Torres Almarales on that occasion.
Santiago de Cuba has faced a series of attacks on its photovoltaic telecommunications infrastructure this year: on May 1, a panel was stolen from the Micro 9-2 Integrated Cabinet, leaving over 560 users without service. On the 30th of that month, four panels disappeared from the Flores neighborhood cabinet. A few days later, on June 6, another four were stolen from the Micro 7 neighborhood.
The pattern is repeated throughout the Island. In Matanzas, three people were arrested in early September for stealing 28 panels intended for water pumping in Los Arabos, of which only 21 were recovered.
In Las Tunas, similar robberies hit pumping stations and ETECSA cables in Amancio. In Holguín, four individuals beat and tied up the guard of a station to steal 32 panels. In Jovellanos, this week, a man was arrested after climbing onto a roof and stealing a solar panel, with a similar criminal history.
Despite the fact that the Supreme People's Court issued Opinion 475 in May 2025, classifying these thefts as sabotage with penalties of up to 30 years, life imprisonment, or the death penalty in aggravated cases, the authorities initiated more than 460 criminal investigations for crimes against the electrical system between 2025 and the first half of 2026.
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