[November 23, 2010] Electricity fraud drastically increases in Havana: official Tweet HAVANA, Nov 23, 2010 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Cuban capital has reported a drastic increase in electricity fraud this year, a municipal government official said on Tuesday. More than 5,800 cases of electricity fraud have been detected in Havana in the first ten months of this year, greatly exceeding the number of over 100 cases discovered in the same period of the previous year, said Inaudis Mora, director of the Electric Union in Havana. Under a law signed by the Council of Ministers, the violators are punished with fines of 500 pesos (20 U.S. dollars), with their electricity supply cut off 72 hours. If the offender relapses, the fine is 1,000 pesos (40 dollars) and a longer period of service suspension. A permanent file for electricity fraud will be opened against the offender. According to Rolando Hernandez, an expert from the electricity company of Havana, more than 11 million megawatt-hours of electricity were recovered after the exposure of the violations. Havana consumes a quarter of the country's energy, while the residential sector uses 50 percent of that proportion. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]