The independent media elTOQUE has responded to the most recent accusations made by Sandro Castro, who blamed the platform for "artificially inflating" the exchange rate of the dollar in the Cuban informal market for financial gain.
In a video posted on social media, the entrepreneur and influencer strongly criticized the team behind the site that has established itself for years as a reference for documenting exchange rate behavior on the island.
According to Castro, elTOQUE would be a "dark elite that doesn't show its face and that instead of helping, only seeks to enrich itself at the expense of all of us."
In his words, the media would be manipulating the prices of currencies like the dollar and the euro, repeating a pattern of "inflation" and "buyback" with which they would seek to achieve a profit margin.
However, the response from elTOQUE has been swift.
The media's representatives have dismantled the arguments of Fidel Castro's grandson, exposing what they characterize as a strategy of political and discursive manipulation that aims to divert attention from the true players in the black currency market in Cuba.
"We are not the ones participating in the market, but you are."
In its public response, elTOQUE stated that its role is not to intervene in, benefit, or harm the informal market, but to reflect its behavior with statistical rigor.
"What has happened in recent days with the representative rate of the informal market is nothing more than a reflection of the market that we reliably monitor both downwards and upwards," they explained.
And they add: "If you have doubts, there are the real messages that we verify every day. Go and verify them, because tomorrow, if the offers go up again, no matter how many comments and campaigns they create on social media, our arrows will show up again."
Far from being a speculative actor, elTOQUE is directed towards another group of interest: the Cuban entrepreneurs themselves, among whom is Sandro Castro.
According to the platform, "Sandro Castro and many other Cuban entrepreneurs want to promote their own benchmark rate, a rate which they believe is fairer, but they do not acknowledge that many of these Cuban entrepreneurs are the main players in the illegal currency market."
“If we follow Sandro Castro, those who want to take on the role of leaders in the informal currency market are its main players, those individuals who, unlike elTOQUE, actually participate in that market and do benefit from it,” the digital outlet adds.
Face the elite that never did
The response also included a personal and political reflection on who makes up elTOQUE and what their journey has been so far.
“We are people who, like myself, unlike many in the real Cuban elite, face challenges directly and strive to provide information and explanations that even the most inexperienced party officials do not offer,” declared a member of the editorial team.
The digital medium assures that it not only documents the market but also confronts the real costs of practicing independent journalism within a dictatorship.
In the words of elTOQUE: “There is no greater pressure than doing journalism in Cuba. From the moment you decide to do something like that, you not only receive negative comments on Facebook, but you also face the real and brutal repression from the apparatuses of the Cuban State Security and from the propaganda media of the Communist Party.”
"The wolves that dress as sheep"
Sandro Castro's attack was also refuted by elTOQUE with a historical and symbolic reminder: the Castro surname has been linked to political and economic power in Cuba for decades, an elite that has indeed thrived on privilege rather than effort.
"The story of an elite that manipulates, exploits, and falsely presents itself as hardworking is not ours at elTOQUE; it is the story of Sandro Castro, his grandfather, and the gerontocracy that helped him remain in power," they state.
As an example, they recalled Fidel Castro's statements to Ignacio Ramonet, in which he claimed that his monthly salary was 30 dollars, and that it was enough for him to cover even the party membership fee.
José Ramón Machado Ventura was also cited, stating that he has never been concerned about his salary.
"He was not worried because he wasn't living off that. The same has happened to Sandro Castro, who says and wants us to believe that with his efforts he achieved everything he has in Cuba at such a young age," noted elTOQUE.
The response of the digital medium can be summed up in a warning to Cubans: “Choose wisely what to believe, for we cannot always place our hopes in the wolves that dress as lambs to continue enjoying the meat of the sheep.”
A conflict that reveals deeper fractures
The confrontation between elTOQUE and Sandro Castro is not just a dispute over the dollar rate, but also a symbolic struggle between two Cubas: one that documents, analyzes, and denounces; and another that, drawing from the legacy of power, seeks to reshape the narrative to remain a point of reference even within the chaos.
As the country's economic crisis worsens, with inflation, shortages, and a currency in free fall, Cubans continue to face not only the consequences of failed economic policies but also the discursive tensions between those who seek to inform and those who aim to control the narrative.
elTOQUE ensures that it has not changed its stance: it will continue to publish reference rates based on real data, while enduring the pressure of doing journalism in a country where reporting independently remains a risky endeavor.
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