A group of Cubans—men and women—was sentenced to prison terms of four to five years for being part of a network dedicated to the illegal sale of Starlink antennas in Santa Clara, according to a report from an officially aligned Facebook profile known as "Alejandro Noticias Cuba."
According to that publication, the events occurred weeks before this Friday, and the sentences were confirmed by sources close to the families of the defendants in court. The information does not come from an officially published judicial ruling or from an institutional channel of the regime.
In the raids carried out at the homes of the detainees and at the residences of those receiving the goods, 37 antennas that had entered the country through illegal channels were seized, as specified by the official profile; it also added that the equipment "had entered the country illegally and was being sold unlawfully."
The sanctions were not limited to the main sellers. The transporters linked to the network also received criminal convictions, while the receivers faced fines of 100,000 Cuban pesos (CUP) and the confiscation of equipment. The publication warned that "repeated offenders will face higher penalties" and emphasized that "sanctions were imposed on the entire criminal chain: the importer, the transporter, the seller, and the buyer."
The applicable legal framework in this case includes Article 295.1 of the Cuban Penal Code (Law 151/2022), which classifies the crime of illegal dissemination of satellite, television, and radio signals, telecommunications services, or similar services. The regulation establishes penalties ranging from three to eight years of imprisonment for those who, without legal authorization, direct, organize, distribute, profit from, or finance the dissemination of such signals or services.
The same penalty is outlined in article 295.2 for those who market or distribute means, equipment, or technologies, or facilitate the illegal activities described in the previous section. In May 2026, the Ministry of Communications strengthened this regulatory framework with Resolution 1/2026, which prohibits the import of equipment and devices used to access computer or telecommunications networks without authorization and establishes requirements for technical authorization for other equipment, including satellite television receivers and their antennas.
The official profile justified the severity of the penalties by arguing that Starlink terminals "have been linked to war operations" and that their clandestine introduction "is used for a parallel network beyond the control of the State." This narrative reflects the regime's line, which since 2025 has classified the antennas as tools of U.S. "digital aggression," without any verifiable independent evidence supporting those claims.
The case of Santa Clara is part of a systematic campaign by the Cuban Customs against Starlink equipment that intensified starting in 2025, with seizures at airports where the devices were arriving concealed in boxes of monitors, soldering machines, and audio equipment from Miami.
The demand for these antennas among the Cuban population has a direct explanation: ETECSA, the state monopoly on telecommunications in Cuba, operates in a country where the mobile internet download speed was just 7.21 Mbps in May 2026, according to figures from the Speedtest Global Index that ranked the island last in Latin America.
Despite the deficiencies in service, the company maintains a pricing scheme introduced in May 2025 that restricts ordinary top-ups in Cuban pesos and offers additional packages both in national currency and in dollars. Among the announced rates were 3 GB additional for 3,360 CUP, which is even higher than the Cuban monthly minimum wage, set at 3,210 pesos; as well as packages with greater capacity offered in dollars.
In March 2026, Elon Musk confirmed that the Starlink signal reaches Cuba, although it cannot be officially marketed on the island. Despite the restrictions, equipment circulates in the informal market at prices exceeding 1,000 dollars.
The reaction of internet users to the news was quite expressive. One person wrote ironically, "Me reading the news from Santa Clara with my Starlink." Another drew a historical parallel: "This reminds me of the dollar; how many celebrated birthdays for having just one dollar, and now we have a non-dollarized economy where everything is in dollars."
A third party pointed to the root of the problem: “There is another underlying issue. If ETECSA provided better service, there wouldn’t be a need to market those antennas.” And a Cuban who read the news from Jamaica summarized the paradox in a single phrase: “How is it that people are treated as criminals for wanting Internet access? They asked me, and I replied, that’s Cuba.”
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