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An investigation by journalist Shirsho Dasgupta, a reporter for the Miami Herald, reveals the connections of the financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with Cuba, including a meeting with Fidel Castro in 2003 and the funding of a neuroscience congress backed by the Cuban regime in 2017.
The article, published this Tuesday, is based on the millions of pages of records that the U.S. Department of Justice released in early 2026 and is part of the Herald's broader coverage of the Epstein files.
In March 2003, Epstein traveled to Cuba alongside his accomplice and former partner Ghislaine Maxwell and the former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana Arango.
Maxwell herself confirmed the meeting with the Cuban dictator to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in an interview in 2025: "We met with Fidel Castro," she stated, according to Justice Department documents cited by the Herald.
El Herald clarified that it found no evidence that Epstein discussed politics or business with the Cuban leader during that visit.
Approximately 15 years later, Epstein realized what records describe as his dream of funding a "great congress in Havana."
In November 2017, he sponsored the NeuPsyco Congress, an international neuroscience congress supported by the Cuban government, held in the capital of the island.
Epstein got involved in that project through the Hong Kong researcher Gino Yu, an academic from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, whose work on consciousness and "special abilities" the financier was already funding.
However, as documented by Shirsho Dasgupta, Epstein was deeply dissatisfied with the results and complained about not receiving adequate reports on the use of his money.
In correspondence with the British neurophysiologist Peter Fenwick, who attended the conference, Epstein wrote: "I have not yet seen how a single dollar from my project in Cuba was spent. Not a dollar, nor an article."
Fenwick replied that the conference had been a success: "Excellent conference. Many young Cubans with posters and presentations on neuroscience, whom it was a pleasure to encourage. Some senior Cuban scientists with notable discoveries."
The Herald attempted to contact Yu through his university, but received no response.
Records from the Department of Justice suggest that the NeuPsyco Congress was the last time Epstein funded an academic project in Cuba.
Dasgupta's research also documents other ties of Epstein to Latin America: his advisory role to the CEO of DP World —a multinational from Dubai— during the nationalization of the Venezuelan ports of Puerto Cabello ordered by Hugo Chávez in 2009; his business dealings with the Venezuelan businessman Francisco D'Agostino, who was under U.S. sanctions between 2021 and 2025 for negotiating oil deals with the Venezuelan state company; and his interest in purchasing planes from South Aviation Inc., a Fort Lauderdale company owned by the Argentine Federico Machado, who was accused in 2021 of conspiracy to traffic cocaine in a criminal operation estimated at $350 million.
Epstein ultimately did not make that purchase.
Machado was extradited to the US from Argentina in late 2025 and is currently in federal custody awaiting trial, facing a potential life sentence.
Dasgupta's investigation is part of the broader coverage by the Herald on the Epstein files, led by journalist Julie K. Brown, who in 2018 revealed the immunity agreement that protected the financier in Florida and triggered his subsequent federal prosecution.
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