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Jeremy P. Lewin, acting Undersecretary of State and senior advisor to Secretary Marco Rubio, stated this Saturday that the new U.S. sanctions against GAESA target directly the illicit funds that the Cuban regime elites have amassed in secret bank accounts abroad.
"The communist system of Cuba is a cruel lie. While the people suffer from hunger, poverty, and repression, the regime's corrupt elites have channeled the country's resources into a secret network of bank accounts abroad for their personal benefit. Enough already!" wrote Lewin on his X account (@SubsecretarioF).
Lewin specified that the sanctions target not only the military conglomerate but also "the foreign entities that host them, anywhere in the world," and demanded that the regime return those resources to the Cuban people.
The sanctions were announced by Rubio on May 7 and target the conglomerate itself, its director Brig. Gen. Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and the mining company Moa Nickel S.A.
Washington estimates that GAESA accumulates between 18,000 and 20,000 million dollars in assets abroad, and that its income "likely exceeds more than three times the Cuban government's budget," according to the executive order signed by President Trump at the end of April.
The conglomerate controls between 40% and 70% of the formal Cuban economy, including luxury hotels, hundreds of gas stations, supermarkets, currency exchange houses, the only internet operator on the island, and the Banco Financiero Internacional, which gives it dominance over the country's foreign currency reserves.
All of this operates in complete opacity: GAESA does not allow the Cuban government to audit its accounts.
In 2024, the state controller was dismissed after 14 years in the position for publicly admitting that she did not have access to the finances of the conglomerate.
Rubio described GAESA as "a private company that has more money than the government itself" and does not allocate a single resource to the population.
"It's a sanction against this company that robs the Cuban people for the benefit of a few," said the Secretary of State during his trip to the Vatican, adding, "we're going to do more."
Foreign companies have until June 5 to cut their operations with GAESA or face secondary sanctions. Major shipping companies have already halted operations with Cuba following the announcement.
Pressure is intensifying on multiple fronts. The CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, traveled to Havana yesterday and met with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (“El Cangrejo”), grandson of Raúl Castro and a key figure in the negotiations with Washington, as well as with the Minister of the Interior and the head of Cuban intelligence.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice will announce on May 20 a federal indictment against Raúl Castro for the downing of the Brothers to the Rescue planes on February 24, 1996, which resulted in the death of four Cuban Americans.
The president Miguel Díaz-Canel described Trump's executive order as "coercive," while the Cuban government itself admitted that its oil reserves have been depleted, adding unprecedented economic pressure on the regime.
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