The traffic police of Baracoa, in the province of Guantánamo, stopped a citizen who was transporting 28 quintals of clean coffee in a rental car, according to a report this Sunday by the official page "Guantánamo and its Truth" on Facebook.
The detained individual resides in the municipality of Marianao, in Havana, and the coffee was allegedly destined for the capital.
The published photographs show the citizen —with a pixelated face— next to dozens of sacks piled against a wall, a gray Hyundai Accent, and the trunk of the vehicle open with the cargo visible inside.
The 28 quintals correspond to 2,800 pounds of clean coffee. Based on a price of around 700 Cuban pesos per pound in the informal market of Guantánamo, the potential value of the load would amount to almost two million Cuban pesos.
The citizen is under investigation for an alleged crime of speculation and hoarding. The inquiries aim to determine the exact origin of the product, which, according to the report, may have been acquired in Baracoa itself, and whether purchasing bypassed contracting and state control mechanisms or if there were failures to meet delivery commitments by producers.
The use of a rented car adds another facet to the case. If it is confirmed that the vehicle was leased from Transtur and used in an illegal activity, the renter would face contractual penalties, loss of liability relief, and additional charges for damages.
Baracoa is one of the main coffee producing and exporting regions in the country. The province of Guantánamo exported about 370 tons of products —including coffee— during the first quarter of 2026, valued at over 72 million Cuban pesos. However, the population lacks access to the product: Cuba needs about 24,000 tons annually to meet domestic demand, but only produced 2,887 tons in the first half of 2025, just 23.7% of the plan.
This contradiction between export and scarcity fuels an active informal market and increasingly frequent police operations. At the end of April, authorities confiscated more than 270 sacks of coffee in a home in Santiago de Cuba, and days earlier over 100 sacks were seized hidden among coal in a truck headed for Las Tunas. The pattern repeats: coffee is transported from the producing east to Havana or other provinces for sale at prices far above the official ones.
The Cuban Penal Code, in effect since 2022, punishes hoarding with a prison sentence of six months to two years, while speculation can result in one to three years of imprisonment.
The coffee harvest season 2026-2027 in Guantánamo kicked off with the goal of harvesting 294,568 cans across eight municipalities, following a previous campaign deemed "very low" by the authorities themselves.
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