In what are called “Stores of Currency Collection,” notice carefully that the stated objective is not to provide a service or to satisfy clients, but to remove the money from your pocket… seriously! This well-patronized model is a set of stores called “All for One.” You can find everything there from plaster figurines through scrub brushes all the way to water pistols for the kids.
These stores are very popular and usually there’s a line outside the door. Families buy gifts for Teacher’s Day, and a host of foodstuffs of great utility but dubious quality. It is precisely the latter to which I would like to refer, as the “sell-by” dates of most of the products make their sale to consumers a real scam.
On their labels, the products show they are from an Italian company called “ITALSAVE,” and another Spanish one called “Vidal.” I wonder if these companies know that the products they sell to the Cuban state are used to exploit the inhabitants of this island and that by the time they arrive in our hands there is such a decrease in commercial value that it would be better if they were incinerated.
This could go much further and we have to ask ourselves if between the shareholders of both companies, ITALSAVE and Vidal, they will not be, at some point, in Cuban hands. The old trick of buying yourself from yourself. The well-known scheme of being the bank, the seller and the buyer at the same time. It’s the only way one could conceive that someone would buy such a load of dysfunctional trinkets to sell to their own people, without demanding at least a minimal level of quality.
For anyone who might be able to continue the research (for me it is impossible given my well-known difficulties in accessing the internet), here is more information about these companies.
From the Italian company:
Italsav
VENDITA ARTICOLI MONOPREZZO
SALE ARTICLES MONOPRICE
VENTA DE ARTICULOS MONO PRECIO
Italsav s.r.l.
Via Newton snc – Zona Industriale
67051 Avezzano (AQ) – Italy
Tel. +39 0863 509033
Fax + 39 0863 497192
e-mail: italsav@italsav.it
From the Spanish company:
Vidal
Partida La Montana. s/n.
46293 BENEIXIDA (Valencia)
Tel: (96) 297 65 35
Fax: (96) 297 65 20
Email: vidal.dc@vlc.servicom.es
Text from street sign: Gap