- Free tip for anyone planning bizarre crimes — don’t steal from a totalitarian Communist government.
There’s a global competition among criminals to find who can commit the most outlandish crime. There has to be, looking at the bizarre thefts that keep popping up all around the world.
At the end of last year, we brought you the story of the Florida woman whose driveway was stolen. Then, just last week, somebody stole a 200-foot radio tower in Alabama.
Recently, some criminals in Cuba decided to show they can steal weird things as well.
So, they stole 145 tons of chicken.
The thieves, cooperating with corrupt officials, took the enormous load of poultry from a state-run distribution center. They then proceeded to sell their loot on the black market and used their earning to buy various luxury items.
However, the thieves made one crucial mistake. They stole from Communist Cuba’s government.
Communist Cuba’s government doesn’t like it when people steal from them.
A swift crackdown saw dozens of people linked to the theft get arrested. Although Cuba isn’t as trigger-happy with criminals as it used to be, the suspects are still looking at spending potentially decades in jail.
A Crime Most Fowl
Now, we don’t know every single detail about the chicken heist. Cuba’s government is tight-lipped about what’s going on in the country and rarely releases reports on crimes.
The poultry theft was so massive, though, that it had to be made public knowledge — if only to make examples out of the arrested suspects.
Cuba’s state TV announced the theft and the arrest of the suspects in a broadcast on February 9. They didn’t tell when or where the theft happened, but they did say the chicken was stolen from a government-run ration distribution center.
The broadcast also said how much chicken was taken. And it’s a lot.
According to the authorities, the thieves stole 1,660 boxes of chicken. Put together, that’s around 145 tons of poultry.
The Cuban government further detailed that the amount of meat is equal to 33,000 to 55,000 birds. Security camera footage shows multiple refrigerated trucks driving out of the state-run cold facility.
The thieves must have had some kind of a massive refrigerator of their own, too, since raw chicken isn’t exactly famous for staying good. That’s particularly true because the criminals didn’t sell the stuff in bulk.
Instead, they peddled it off bit by bit on the black market on Cuban streets. With the money they made, the gang proceeded to buy various luxury and convenience items.
According to the state broadcaster, they bought laptops, televisions, and air conditioners. They also reportedly purchased refrigerators — potentially to store more chicken.
Stealing from the Needy
But hold up a bit. Did you notice something incriminating in the account of the crime?
That’s right — the crooks got caught on surveillance footage as they left the cold facility. In addition, right at the reported time of the crime (between midnight and 2 a.m.) operators noticed unexplainable temperature fluctuations in the chicken storage unit.
With all that, it didn’t take long for Cuban authorities to descend upon the criminals. According to the TV report, 30 people have been charged with being complicit in the crime.
That includes IT staff and security guards of the cold storage facility. The heist must not have been very well planned, considering they didn’t disconnect the security cameras.
Unlike a few decades ago, the suspects probably won’t have to line up against a wall. Still, if they’re found guilty, they’re looking at up to 20 years in prison.
It’s no wonder the Cuban government took quick action to catch the chicken thieves. Since the 1959 revolution, Cuba has been operating on a rationing system.
The goal of rationing was to realize Castro’s dream of the island country’s new socialist system providing state-subsidized, free food to all Cubans. However, Cuba relies heavily on imported food and has often struggled with shortages.
Food scarcity hasn’t gotten any better with the COVID pandemic, the resulting drop in tourism, and the tough U.S. sanctions.
Against this backdrop, what if we told you that — according to the state food distributor COPMAR — the amount of stolen chicken was enough to supply a mid-sized Cuban province for a month?
With that context, you’d be probably pretty pissed off too if you heard somebody stole all that chicken.