The American YouTuber Nick Shirley published a video in which he recounts how Cuban intelligence agents followed and cornered him during his first 24 hours in Havana, where he traveled to document the humanitarian crisis the island has been experiencing under decades of communism, according to a video shared on his social media.
Shirley arrived in Cuba with a visa for journalistic activities—one of the 12 legal categories for entry—and problems began at the airport. According to her, the authorities confiscated her two GoPro cameras, her Meta Glasses, and all her microphones, leaving her only with her iPhone and a microphone that was at the bottom of her backpack.
"As soon as I arrived in Cuba, I did everything necessary regarding documentation to enter the country. Right now, there is a huge problem here: the biggest humanitarian crisis they have faced in perhaps 50 years," stated the content creator in the video.
Accompanied by two security guards, he went out onto the streets of Havana to film the situation: crumbling buildings, food shortages, streets almost devoid of vehicles —a liter of gasoline costs 10 dollars— and long lines in front of hospitals operating without electricity, where, as he described, surgeons perform surgeries using flashlights.
The incident that triggered the manhunt occurred when Shirley interviewed a man about communism near a hospital.
A woman approached and began to discreetly record them with her phone; when confronted, she claimed to be on a call, but her screen displayed the camera app open.
One of the guards followed her and saw her meet with another Cuban intelligence officer, who headed to the hotel lobby.
At 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 30, at least three agents were waiting in the lobby of one of the few hotels in Havana with 24-hour electricity, while a dark vehicle kept watch from the street.
"Right now, we have Cuban intelligence in the hotel lobby, working to basically capture us and potentially imprison us or prevent us from leaving Cuba," Shirley recounted from the eighth floor of the building.
The YouTuber recorded the video as a sort of emergency testimony: "If this video reaches the world, either I was kidnapped or I'm safe. If it's after May 1st, I was not kidnapped."
His escape plan included taking zigzag taxis to throw off the agents, reaching the U.S. Embassy—about two and a half kilometers away—and buying a last-minute flight to leave on Friday morning, before the regime held its largest annual march in front of the hotel.
That May 1st march was presided over by Raúl Castro in his first documented public appearance since December 2025, according to Cuban independent press reported.
"This is not a joke. When we talk about communism, something that is often not considered is freedom of expression or freedom of the press," Shirley emphasized in the video.
The Miami-Dade County Commissioner Roberto J. González shared the video on X and described it as "real journalism," thanking Shirley for "shedding light on this tyrannical and murderous regime that oppresses the Cuban people."
"I have so much more to show you in the coming days, as we escaped from Cuba," wrote Shirley, who made headlines last year after allegedly exposing a massive fraud with public funds in the Minnesota childcare system, in the comments section of her video on Youtube.
The episode illustrates the systematic repression faced by independent journalism in Cuba, where state intelligence has intensified aggression against the press in recent months.
In January 2026, the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press registered 69 arbitrary detentions of journalists, a 430% increase compared to the same month the previous year, in the context of a crisis that leaves over two million Cubans in an emergency situation with more than 96,000 pending surgeries.
Cuba ranks 160 out of 180 countries in the 2026 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders, the second worst in Latin America, only ahead of Nicaragua, and currently holds 775 political prisoners, 338 of whom were sentenced for the protests of July 11, 2021.
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