A police operation deployed in the popular council Luyanó Moderno, municipality San Miguel del Padrón, in Havana, resulted in the seizure of five million pesos in cash, a revolver with ammunition, and an unspecified amount of illicit substances that tested positive in laboratory tests, according to reports from Facebook accounts connected to the police and the government.
The information was disseminated by Habana Noticias and Variedades Guanabacoa, which tagged state media such as Granma, Cubadebate, Canal Habana, and Cubavisión Internacional in their posts, although none of these outlets issued an official statement regarding the operation nor did MININT publish an institutional report on the matter.
The images accompanying the posts show a pink suitcase filled with bundles of Cuban money in denominations ranging from 20 to 10,000 pesos, tied with rubber bands. Alongside the cash are a black snub-nose revolver with several scattered cartridges, two digital weighing scales, rolls of yellow adhesive tape, and wrappers of substances.
"During the operation, law enforcement seized 5 million pesos in cash, a firearm, and an illicit substance that tested positive in the corresponding laboratory tests," reported the website Habana Noticias.
The detainees were placed at the disposal of the relevant authorities to begin investigations and the criminal process, according to the same sources. The exact number of those arrested, the type of drug seized, and its weight were not disclosed.
The operation comes just days after a large-scale operation in the same municipality resulted in 71 arrests for offenses including drug possession, carrying bladed weapons, prostitution, and illicit economic activity.
San Miguel del Padrón ranks among the four municipalities in the capital with the highest complexity in drug trafficking and consumption, as identified by MININT in December 2024, alongside Marianao, La Lisa, and Arroyo Naranjo. In December 2025, authorities dismantled in that same area a network attempting to distribute over one million doses of synthetic cannabinoids, resulting in 24 arrests and the seizure of more than 11 million pesos.
The national landscape reflects a sustained worsening of the issue. The cases handled in Havana related to drug use nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025, rising from 467 to 886 cases, and the specialized laboratory of MININT identified 46 distinct formulas of synthetic cannabinoids in circulation. MININT itself acknowledged on October 30 that the possession and use of drugs have already reached all Cuban provinces.
As a point of reference, the five million pesos seized in Luyanó Moderno would amount to approximately 20,000 doses of the synthetic cannabinoid known as "the chemical," which had a market price of around 250 pesos per dose at the beginning of this year. Just days earlier, a Cuban court sentenced a citizen to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking, signaling the punitive escalation with which the regime is trying to contain a phenomenon that its own figures acknowledge is out of control.
Related videos:
Filed under: