Informal market finds new space on growing internet

The Telegram group message, which includes 170,000 people, is just one of many that have flourished in recent years in Cuba alongside an exponential increase in internet usage on the communist-governed island.

The informal sale of everything from eggs to car parts — the country’s so-called black market — is a time-honored practice in crisis-stricken Cuba, where access to the most basic items such as milk, chicken, medicine and cleaning products has always been limited. The market is technically illegal, but the extent of illegality, in official eyes, can vary by the sort of items sold and how they were obtained.

Before the internet, such exchanges took place through contacts like neighbors and the community.