The economist Elías Amor issued a strong clarification regarding the figures circulating about the assets of GAESA: without access to their actual accounts, any number —18,000, 22,000, or 2,000 million dollars— is pure speculation. He stated this in an interview with Tania Costa, in a segment dedicated to analyzing the financial opacity of the Cuban military conglomerate.
"Let's see when the GAESA box opens and we can look at the accounts, which are hidden, opaque, and unknown. Let's see exactly how much money GAESA has because we might be in for a surprise with these spendthrifts," said the economist, questioning the management they have conducted and the fate that the Cuban communists have given to the evaporated public funds.
Amor described himself as a professional who needs concrete data before making any judgment. "I am like Saint Thomas; I am an economist who has lived his whole life with paper, with the numbers." He was forthright in pointing out his limitations. "I cannot comment on a company that someone tells me has eighteen billion or twenty-two billion or two billion; no, no. Just give me the figures, and I will tell you how much it has. I can calculate it for you in five minutes."
The figure of 18 billion dollars in assets attributed to GAESA comes from leaked internal documents analyzed by the Miami Herald in 2024, which also indicated approximately 14.467 billion deposited in the group's own bank accounts. Marco Rubio used this information to advocate for the sanctions against GAESA formalized on May 7, 2026 under Executive Order 14404, arguing that the conglomerate concentrates the wealth of Cuba while the people suffer shortages. The BBC, for its part, acknowledged that it could not independently verify that figure.
Amor clarified that talking about "assets" does not equate to discussing liquid money. "Assets can be many things: they can be debt securities, they can be buildings, warehouses, ships, yachts, they can be agricultural land. They can be so many things that it is very difficult to approach a company that is completely unaccustomed to audit controls and commercial records."
The economist described GAESA as an opaque consortium with no publicly verifiable data. “If you search online for GAESA's accounts, absolutely nothing comes up.” He went further to characterize its managers: “GAESA is a consortium of state security, the military, and the Castro family, and it cannot be said that they are business management prodigies, but rather a bunch of spendthrifts who have dedicated themselves to enjoying life by spending on lobster and other very luxurious foods.”
Regarding the true destination of the money, Amor raised a troubling hypothesis. “It has been registered under other names, moved to different places, in short, practices that I will not describe here but that go against the market economy.” A legal reform of 2022 left the General Comptroller's Office of Cuba without the authority to audit the military conglomerate or the companies linked to the Armed Forces.
When a listener asked why the regime would risk losing power if they have so much wealth, Amor replied straightforwardly: "Because maybe they don't have as much money. I have serious doubts that they have that much money."
The economist concluded his analysis with a broader perspective on the Cuban crisis: "The economic disaster in Cuba is widespread. It is a hole whose depth we don't know how to fill." He ended by asserting that the solution will not come from the regime. "Cubans of good faith must take the lead in the new democratic government of Cuba to pull this country out of the hole it is in. Because I insist, perhaps not everything that glitters is gold."
Filed under: