<p>Havana: Cuba has charged 30 people for stealing 133 tonnes of chicken and selling them on the street in a rare major heist at a time of food shortages in the communist-run nation.</p><p>Thieves took the meat, in 1,660 white boxes, from a state facility in the capital Havana, and used the sale proceeds to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners, according to a Cuban state TV broadcast late on Friday.</p><p>The chicken had been earmarked for Cuba`s "rationbook" system introduced after the late Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution to provide subsidized staples for all.</p><p>Rigoberto Mustelier, director of government food distributor COPMAR, said the quantity stolen was the equivalent of a month`s ration of chicken for a medium-sized province at current distribution rates.</p><p>The amount of chicken available via the rationbook has fallen sharply in recent years as economic crisis has brought scarcities of food, fuel and medicines.</p>.Who created butter chicken? The great Indian curry clash.<p>Many subsidized products reach the populace days, weeks or even months later than scheduled, leaving people who make an average wage of 4,209 pesos a month ($14 at the informal exchange rate) to seek other ways to make ends meet.</p><p>Authorities did not say when the chicken theft took place, but noted it likely occurred between midnight and 2 a.m., when they detected fluctuations in the temperature of the cold storage facility. Video surveillance captured trucks transporting the chicken off site.</p><p>The 30 charged included shift bosses and IT workers at the plant, as well as security guards and outsiders not directly affiliated with the company, the TV report said.</p><p>The suspects, if found guilty, could face as many as 20 years in prison.</p><p>Crime has increased alongside economic hardship since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, though reports of large scale thefts like this one are still a rarity on the Caribbean island. </p>
<p>Havana: Cuba has charged 30 people for stealing 133 tonnes of chicken and selling them on the street in a rare major heist at a time of food shortages in the communist-run nation.</p><p>Thieves took the meat, in 1,660 white boxes, from a state facility in the capital Havana, and used the sale proceeds to buy refrigerators, laptops, televisions and air conditioners, according to a Cuban state TV broadcast late on Friday.</p><p>The chicken had been earmarked for Cuba`s "rationbook" system introduced after the late Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution to provide subsidized staples for all.</p><p>Rigoberto Mustelier, director of government food distributor COPMAR, said the quantity stolen was the equivalent of a month`s ration of chicken for a medium-sized province at current distribution rates.</p><p>The amount of chicken available via the rationbook has fallen sharply in recent years as economic crisis has brought scarcities of food, fuel and medicines.</p>.Who created butter chicken? The great Indian curry clash.<p>Many subsidized products reach the populace days, weeks or even months later than scheduled, leaving people who make an average wage of 4,209 pesos a month ($14 at the informal exchange rate) to seek other ways to make ends meet.</p><p>Authorities did not say when the chicken theft took place, but noted it likely occurred between midnight and 2 a.m., when they detected fluctuations in the temperature of the cold storage facility. Video surveillance captured trucks transporting the chicken off site.</p><p>The 30 charged included shift bosses and IT workers at the plant, as well as security guards and outsiders not directly affiliated with the company, the TV report said.</p><p>The suspects, if found guilty, could face as many as 20 years in prison.</p><p>Crime has increased alongside economic hardship since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, though reports of large scale thefts like this one are still a rarity on the Caribbean island. </p>