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The Supreme Masonic Court of Justice of Cuba has definitively expelled eight members from the Order for offenses including "betrayal of the Brotherhood and its Institutions," abuse, fraud, embezzlement, and involvement in what the ruling describes as an internal coup d'état.
The news portal CubaNet reported that Special Circular No. 15 from the Grand Secretary, issued on June 5th, confirms the expulsion of eight members from the institution, for their involvement in a crisis that originated in January 2024, when the theft of 19,000 dollars was reported from the office of the then Grand Master Mario Alberto Urquía Carreño at the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Cuba (GLC).
A subsequent audit revealed that Urquía Carreño and the former Grand Treasurer Airam Cervera Reigosa had embezzled nearly 5 million pesos from the institution through fraud, accounting manipulation, and invoice forgery.
Both are among the eight expelled, found guilty of "abuse, fraud, and embezzlement of Masonic property or funds." Urquía Carreño had resigned from the position of Grand Master in August 2024 following the scandal and widespread disapproval from the Masonic community.
His successor, Mayker Filema Duarte, far from resolving the crisis, refused to call for general elections to remain in power and initiated a persecution against the Freemasons who opposed him, including the Sovereign Grand Commander José Ramón Viñas Alonso and the writer and former political prisoner Ángel Santiesteban Prats.
Both Urquía Carreño and Filema Duarte had the support of the Cuban Ministry of Justice during the crisis.
Filema Duarte's management led to mass protests in July 2025, when dozens of Masons forced their way into the GLC headquarters, located at the intersection of Belascoaín and Carlos III streets in Havana, singing the Bayamo Anthem and shouting "Long live Cuban Masonry!" and "Long live Cuba!".
The ruling describes those events as "a coup attempt that undermined electoral democracy" of Masonry, but acknowledges as "legitimate" the intention of those who sought to enter the premises to restore constitutional order.
Among those expelled is also Rancell Montero Romero, former president of the Masonic Supreme Court itself, who suspended more than a hundred lodges and dozens of Freemasons, and was instrumental in the expulsion of Viñas Alonso and Santiesteban Prats in early 2025.
The charges against him include "perjury, malicious disappearance or removal of documents, serious abuse in the performance of a Masonic position, and malicious infractions accompanied by serious guilt and potential harm." Montero Romero is also listed as the vice president of the Yoruba Association of Cuba.
The list of those sanctioned is completed with Jesús Martínez Frómeta, who sprayed alcohol in the faces of several colleagues during the altercations in July 2025; Igor Larramendi Ador, former president of the Commission of Jurisprudence and General Affairs; Juan Carlos Yero Ramos, former Grand Treasurer; and Juliannis Galano Gómez, former Grand Secretary.
The ruling states that these individuals brought the Grand Lodge into "unprecedented chaos."
The appeals submitted by all the defendants were declared "unfounded." The sentence warns that "it is necessary to eradicate any hint of a dictatorial stance or those that support it from our symbolic masonry, as it poses an existential threat to masonry."
The mason Sergio Alfonso Vidal stated that the measure "constitutes an act not only of justice but of reparation," and denounced that those expelled "were part of what was undoubtedly not only a collection of ambitions but the service of outdated men in the shadow of a political power that used them to persecute masons within the same Institution."
The formal ratification of the expulsions will remain pending until the Semiannual Session of the Grand Chamber of the Grand Lodge of Cuba, scheduled for September 2026. Until then, the eight individuals involved will remain barred from exercising any Masonic rights, including attending lodge sessions.
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