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The Republican congresswoman from Florida María Elvira Salazar reacted this Wednesday to a report by Martí Noticias that revealed how Emilio Pevida Sánchez, a Cuban diplomat and son of a regime intelligence officer, operates an illegal remittance business from Cuba with a partner based in Indiana, United States.
The investigation, published by journalist Mario J. Pentón on the program "Martí Investiga," identified Pevida Sánchez as a former diplomat at the Cuban embassy in Damascus until the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in December 2024, after which he moved to Beirut. According to researcher Luis Domínguez, he is also an officer in the MININT Intelligence Directorate, trained for State Security missions.
His partner in the United States is Reinier Gómez Hernández, a Cuban resident in Indiana who arrived in the country in 2024 seeking asylum and is processing his residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act. The scheme was promoted through a phone number from ETECSA registered in the name of his father, Emilio Pevida Pupo, a 62-year-old intelligence lieutenant colonel and the current ambassador of Cuba in Mongolia, who used that number in WhatsApp groups to offer active remittances from the U.S. and Europe to Cuba.
The instructions to clients were explicit: do not mention "Cuba" or "remittances" in the bank transfers to evade the controls resulting from the U.S. embargo. When Martí Noticias reached out to Emilio Pevida Sánchez for a statement, he restricted access to his social media and did not respond.
Salazar responded to the report with a message on X in which he described the case as an example of how the regime's elite operates: "Another example of how the Cuban dictatorship turns the misery of the people into profit for the regime's elite. While Cubans live in darkness and have nothing to eat, the children of the regime's tyrants are making business. This is how the mafia that controls Cuba operates. That is why we must detect and investigate ALL of them. We will not allow them to keep mocking our laws right under our noses."
The case falls within a pattern that the congresswoman has consistently denounced in recent months. In February, she pointed out in a congressional hearing that Department of Commerce licenses allowed the export of luxury goods such as Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Maseratis to Cuba. In January, she called on the Cuban exile community to cut remittances, tourism, and flights to avoid financing the dictatorship.
The void exploited by schemes like those of the Pevidas has a specific origin: in January 2025, the Trump administration reinstated sanctions against Orbit S.A., the company of the Cuban military holding GAESA that handled remittances, blocking Western Union and other firms. This measure forced Cubans to resort to informal and costly channels to send money to the island.
The research was one of the last published by Mario J. Pentón at Martí Noticias, a broadcaster funded by the U.S. government that was shut down in March 2026 due to budgetary restructuring by the Trump administration, a decision that sparked controversy in the Cuban exile community. Salazar, for her part, has supported the investigations by the Department of Justice regarding possible federal charges against figures of the Cuban regime.
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