Cuba charges 30 over massive chicken heist

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.