The Asturian businessman and communicator Coque Yustas, creator of the podcast El Inconformista, published a video on Instagram in which he explains in detail how the business conglomerate GAESA operates as a mechanism for enriching the Castro leadership at the expense of the Cuban people.
In the nearly three-minute video titled "GAESA: How the Castros Looted Cuba," Yustas poses a question that encapsulates the core of his analysis.
"How is it possible that, no matter how ineffective and disastrous the management of the Cuban communist leaders is, they took a country that ranked among the highest in the world in terms of prosperity and brought it down to nearly the level of the poorest countries in Africa?"
Her response is straightforward: it's not just a matter of incompetence, but of deliberate corruption.
"The needs and misery that the Cuban people are experiencing are at the expense of enriching the military elite of the country's communist leaders, the generals," he asserts.
Yustas describes GAESA —Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.— as a “parallel government” that controls 40% of Cuba's GDP without being accountable to the National Assembly, the citizenry, or any institution.
"GAESA is a government in the shadows, a government that appoints and removes ministers because it is the true power in Cuba," he points out.
The conglomerate was established in the 1990s by brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro following the Soviet collapse and was led for 26 years by General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, Raúl Castro's son-in-law, until his death on July 1, 2022.
Yustas compares this scenario to hereditary monarchies: "Cuban communists are like hereditary monarchies but in a republican version," he says, pointing out that after Rodríguez López-Calleja, control passed into the hands of Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (El Cangrejo), who does not lead officially but from the shadows, behind the scenes.
The Asturian communicator details the corruption scheme centered around hotel construction: the Cuban state commissions and pays GAESA for the construction of five-star hotels, and the conglomerate keeps the money regardless of whether there are tourists or if the hotel ever opens.
The business is in building the hotel, not in having tourists. It makes no difference to them whether the hotel ever opens.
There is data to support this complaint: between 2021 and 2023, 36% of all Cuban government investment was directed towards hotel infrastructure construction, compared to 1.9% allocated to health and 1.3% to education.
Regarding the fate of the money, Yustas claims that "it is handled opaquely and is laundered to Panama and the United Arab Emirates," with possible ramifications in Russia and China.
It is estimated that the faction aligned with the Castros could have accumulated around 18 billion dollars in opaque accounts, a figure that coincides with what was revealed by the Miami Herald in August 2025 based on leaked internal financial documents, which indicated that GAESA had millions deposited in banks as of March 2024.
The post generated a wide response among Cubans in the comments section.
"Since January 1, 1959, the plundering began under the indifferent gaze of some, the applause of many, the disappointment of others, and the servility of the most," wrote a user.
Another added, "The major problem in my country has always been corruption; they care about nothing but their own benefit."
Yustas closed the video expressing his hope that international pressure would come through economic means.
"I hope, I believe, and I anticipate that this will be where Donald Trump starts to manage the dismantling of the Cuban dictatorship, targeting GAESA," referring to the assets accumulated by the military conglomerate, whose opaque structure in Panama, Cyprus, and Liberia has allowed it to evade international sanctions for decades.
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