Crime rises in Cuba: 2025 registered more than double the crimes than in 2024

Havana.- The most recent report from the Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing (OCAC) confirms “a sustained and alarming escalation of crime in Cuba during 2025”, with very significant increases compared to 2024 and 2023, and with a “particularly worrying expansion of crimes related to the production, sale and consumption of drugs”. According to the monitoring carried out by the OCAC, in 2025, 2,833 reports of crimes were identified and verified, representing an increase of 115.11% compared to 2024 (1,317 reports) and an increase of 336.58% compared to 2023 (649 reports). These figures, obtained through a systematic process of verification and triangulation of public sources, “directly contradict the official narrative about a supposed decrease in crime in the country“. “Growth is not limited to the total volume of criminal acts, but is also expressed in the diversification of the criminal ecosystem and its greater social impact. Robberies continue to be the most voluminous core of crime, with 1,536 reports in 2025, 74.55% more than in 2024 and almost five times more than in 2023, reflecting the degree of material precariousness and deterioration of non-political social control”, the summary of the dossier specifies. “During 2025, 437 incidents related to the production, sale, and consumption of narcotics were reported, solidifying this typology as one of the most concerning trends of the year.

You can also read: Trump says he is negotiating an agreement with Cuban leaders after the oil blockade

Although the reported homicide shows a slight decrease compared to previous years, the report underlines that “crime in Cuba is growing in frequency, diversifying, and becoming more socially harmful, with a sustained increase in the number of victims and people involved in criminal acts“.

The OCAC warns that this expansion of crime cannot be interpreted as a sum of isolated events, but rather as the result of a web of structural causes (economic, institutional, social, political and cultural) that the Cuban State does not publicly recognize and for which it does not have effective solutions.

“The combination of economic collapse, widespread impoverishment, institutional weakening, informational opacity, and the absence of comprehensive public policies has created an environment conducive to the normalization of illegality,” he says.

The lack of transparent official statistics and the selective communication of cases by the Government prevent accurately assessing the real magnitude of the phenomenon. In that sense, the report itself underlines that “the figures presented inevitably constitute an underreporting, which reflects only the visible part of a much deeper citizen security crisis.”