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Corruption Takes Over the Stores in Cuba

The person in charge denies the allegation. A young woman shows on her cell phone the photos of the shop assistant delivering her products. “Look at her with the bag in her hand. Here you can see the exchange”, emphasizes the girl.

The convincing evidence is rejected by the anti-colero: "taking photos is prohibited", she only manages to say. Her response contradicts the authorization of the Minister of Internal Trade, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, who ponders the images in order to denounce any negative behavior or alteration of the prices of the products.

“But I have to take photos to prove the illegalities, otherwise they won't believe us. It is the only way to prove it”, the young woman retorts.

The anticolero is without arguments. Somewhat nervous, he calls a colleague and between the two of them they begin to disperse the indignant people who claim them. “They cannot be crowded. There are many COVID-19 infections and I am going to call the police to fine them,” he threatens.

However, the attempt to restore order has the opposite effect and the atmosphere heats up again. Everywhere you can hear the claims of an angry group: "you are accomplices of what was badly done", "you are disorganizing the queue".

Who are the anticoleros?

Groups for the prevention and confrontation of coleros, resellers and hoarders (anti-coleros) were created throughout the country with the aim of “organizing the queues and eliminating the lists and shifts granted by some people for several days; because the purchase will be made on a first-come, first-served basis," said Juan Miguel Morán, coordinator of defense programs and objectives, at the Provincial Government during the flagging of these groups in Holguín on August 1, 2020.

According to the official newspaper, the teams are made up of "leaders, officials, members of the National Revolutionary Police, the Revolutionary Armed Forces and mass organizations, which will be located in the more than 120 commercial units and markets of the 14 municipalities."

However, in the comments of the note published in the digital version of the local newspaper Now, several readers warned of the failure of the idea.

“Don't just blame the coleros and resellers. Corruption begins with the warehouses, the shops and the sales markets. Storekeepers, clerks, doormen and store workers are the first to notify, mark, even store and hide the products and merchandise for those so-called 'coleros' and 'resellers'. In return they receive a good commission, leaving the least chance to buy from the rest of the population. Please, start where you should start”, wrote Yanelis Ricardo García.

A forum member identified as Rosy denounced that the first offenders are "the directors of these organizations, who secretly hide the merchandise for their friends or for themselves, and do not sell the real amount that reaches the stores." She exemplified what happened in the establishment of a gas station located in the Holguin town of Guardalavaca, "where 25 boxes of chicken arrived and only eight boxes were sold to the population, from 2:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. ”. She revealed that the receipt was forged where it was read that the sale had started at 12 noon.

La corrupción se adueña de las tiendas en Cuba

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For his part, Francisco recounted what happened in Ciego de Ávila, where the queue organizers take out products in coordination with the shop assistants. “Even the policewomen who came to organize left with backpacks full of packages of chicken, detergent and soap. One day, a patrol car loaded a box of liters of oil”, he denounced.

"Now they must create another group that controls that this group does not get corrupted," another reader ironized.

A forum member with the surname Cuenca expressed fear that it would happen “as with the Social Workers, who set out to confront illegalities and became owners of the ticket business and the sale of air conditioners and other equipment.”

The new version of the Social Workers in Cuba was one of the failures of the late dictator Fidel Castro, since its launch in September 2000.

Created “to prevent fuel theft, they ended up corrupting themselves and doing business, not only with gasoline, but also with the Chinese kitchen pots and refrigerators of the pompously called Energy Revolution.”

“You snuck in everyone you wanted”

A woman with tears in her eyes gets angry: “We are here from five in the morning to buy jams for our children. We don't want to buy cigarettes, rum or perfume, which is a luxury, we want jams for the children”.

She highlights that, in full view, “store workers are put in combination with hoarders and resellers. Those of us in the queue have small children who like jams. You snuck in everyone you wanted."

The chronic shortage of basic necessities, exacerbated by the mismanagement of the pandemic, has increased a market for illegal street sales supplied by embezzlement and hoarding of offers from MLC stores, a form of sale with magnetic cards associated with bank accounts established in more than 70 state establishments open throughout Cuba, and the only ones with merchandise for sale.

“The culprits are the same ones who organize the queue. They have an agreement with resellers. I told him to his face and he didn't deny me. When she saw me dressed in the uniform, and to defend herself against my accusation, she told me that I had run away from work. I decided not to answer her because she was provoking me to react and then call the police to arrest me. What she did was divert attention from the illegality that she was committing,” a woman told CubaNet.

Another strategy to favor resellers

According to Felipe Rosales, delaying the sale under any pretext is one of the tricks to benefit the hoarders.

“We arrived at six in the morning and the store opened at 8:30 in the morning. The merchandise was on the store shelves. They told us that they were not selling it because they were waiting for the product codes to go through the checkout process. But in reality they were giving time for the cronies of those who receive money for notifying them and for keeping the merchandise for them to arrive,” says Rosales.

The sale started at 2:30 in the afternoon. “At that time we began to notice that there were people without queuing who were going to the store. When we complained they told us that they were clients who were going to go up to the second floor. Which is not true because through the windows they could see that they were buying in large quantities on the first floor where the merchandise was. I've been here since five in the morning and I was number 56. I was there for more than 12 hours and I queued for pleasure, with no hope of buying tomorrow.

“As an apparent control measure, they collected 34 identity cards and ten cards for physically disabled people. Until closing time 44 people passed. We were a small group of people who had the numbers marked on their forearms, they collected our cards and we couldn't buy because it was time to close the store.

“They receive that merchandise for a voucher that covers the amount. It is impossible that 44 people have bought all the products. But if the store knows that the demand exceeds the offer, it is fair that they inform us so as not to continue queuing. I live here around the corner and 20 people who live in distant places bought before me, how did they find out?” Rosales questions.

“The storekeeper, the manager and the shop assistants know in advance the day and the quantity of products that they are going to sell in the store. This is reported to their contacts (resellers and hoarders) so that they dominate the queue in advance. And then they share the profit, ”she says.

The store has closed and the noise forces a manager to leave. In an attempt to calm things down, he says: “Here's merchandise for those who couldn't buy today. Those who already bought tomorrow will not be able to”. The explanation is interpreted as a fire extinguisher that nobody believes, especially when it is known in advance that the store does not have the technology to identify people who have already bought.

"What they want is to stop the sale and then take the products out when there are no witnesses," says a man.

In these stores it is also common to hide the merchandise and then report that it is sold out. When the customers leave, they remove the merchandise and sell it to the hoarders in exchange for a percent of the profit.

"It's a mob. If you want to see corruption and merchandise trafficking, come here and see how the MLC stores work”, the man who, after several hours in line, returns home empty-handed, comments to another person.

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