A Cuban resident in Moscow reported in a video on Instagram how her compatriots, known as "brigadieres," are withholding the wages of Cuban workers without paying them for their labor.
The author of the reel, identified on social media as La Dior, explained the mechanism of exploitation with a specific example: if 20 people work at a school and the Russian employer pays 2,500 rubles per person, the foreman collects that money and does not distribute it among the workers, claiming that "the Russian did not pay him."
The Russian employer pays the foreman and the foreman keeps our money, just like him, from us Cubans," the young woman stated in the video, which garnered over 30,000 views and thousands of likes in two days.
According to their account, the workers wake up at four in the morning, work without eating, and return home without a cent, with no option to complain.
"We cannot claim anything because we do not have a Russian passport, because there is no proof that the money was paid," she pointed out.
The young woman pointed directly at the indifference of the Cuban intermediary.
"That brigadier forgets that we are Cubans just like him and that we need to send money to Cuba. We wake up at four in the morning, without eating anything, and there’s a mom and a dad waiting for our money on the island."
The video ended with a direct statement: "Cuban people exploit each other among themselves in Moscow. They didn't know that."
The post generated an avalanche of comments confirming that the phenomenon is neither new nor isolated.
"I love being Cuban, but we Cubans trample on each other," wrote a user with 73 supportive interactions. Another was more blunt: "It's better away from Cubans."
A commentator who has been in Russia for a decade confirmed that the situation has existed since his arrival: "Girl, this is not new... it's been this way since I arrived in this country, 10 years ago already."
Other users warned about additional scams in the rental of housing in Moscow.
"They paint everything in gold, and after a week, a Russian shows up and says, 'What are you doing in my house? Get out of here or I'll call the police, or give me money.' At that moment, there's no friend or family to help you. Cubans among Cubans, we kill each other."
The comment that resonated the most politically was one that drew a direct line between the system of the brigadiers and the history of Cuba: "The brigadier learned from Fidel Castro."
This system informally replicates the historical model of the Cuban State of withholding the salaries of workers sent abroad, where state agencies have managed to keep up to 95% of the payments from foreign companies.
The situation for Cubans in Russia is further aggravated by intensified immigration raids since early April, when Russian authorities began sending irregular migrants to the Sájarovo detention center, located 70 kilometers from Moscow, where they remain cut off from communication for weeks or months.
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