Miami resident Eliécer Humberto Cotolorca, a Cuban, was arrested on an American Airlines plane en route to Havana after he stole a watch in a duty free at Miami International Airport.
The report of the local television AméricaTeVe informs that the watch was from Tissot, model T-Touch and had a value of 1075 US dollars. Airport police had clear video of the defendant seen taking the item without paying.
Police officers tracked the Cuban-born thief to Gate D-16 of American Airlines’ Miami-Havana flight and located him in seat 20F before the plane departed. He was then escorted off the plane and when he was off the person handed the watch to the manager of the duty free shop.
The outlet states that the defendant stated that “it was not his intention” to take the watch, but that they told him “his flight was already leaving.” However, the management of the store where the robbery took place told the press that they would press charges against the Cuban.
Eventually, Miami-Dade police took Cotolorca into custody and took him to TGK prison.
“What a shame when his family in Cuba was waiting for him at the airport and after seeing this news he ended up having to return the watch in court and with no morals” and “To get to Cuba to close with the watch speculate , steal and at an airport”, were some of the comments of users on social networks.
In 2021, five people of Cuban descent were arrested and charged by Miami authorities Steal AT&T cables which were then sold on the black market for around $30,000, local media reported.
The defendants, identified as Ivan Perez García, 55 years old, Eric Gonzalez Pando24, Francisco Alberto Gutierrez50, Jordan Ramirez41 and Ermes Gonzalez Pando43, formed a gang that carried out a robbery on a street in Homestead in the early hours of the morning.
Wearing jumpsuits that made them look like a crew of AT&T employees, the subjects used overnight trucks similar to those of the company to unplug the copper cables that carry internet and television to thousands of homes, leaving them without they left service.