The Cuban baseball player Javier Carabeo described for the first time how the regime's security apparatus thwarted his attempt to leave the Cuba team concentration during the Pan American Under-23 Baseball Championship in Aguascalientes, Mexico, in 2022, and how the sports authorities penalized him after having promised that the matter would be resolved.
The testimony was collected by the podcast "Fuera de Serie" from Swing Completo, published on Monday.
The plan and the trap in the hotel
Carabeo recounted that he and his partner Yulián Quintana had everything planned out to leave without being noticed.
“There were two of us: Yulian Quintana and me. They told us they would wait for us in a van at the back of the hotel, so we could leave and go.”, explained the Mayabeque baseball player.
The hotel’s security cameras alerted the staff before they reached the pickup point, and a guard intercepted them. They responded that they were going to deliver items to family members, but the worker prevented them from leaving.
They then sought another way. “When we returned, we took the emergency stairs,” Carabeo recalled.
Upon arriving at the door, the security personnel from the Cuban delegation were already waiting for them. The order was to return to their rooms.
Interrogations under surveillance
The next day, while the rest of the team moved to the stadium, Carabeo and Quintana stayed at the hotel under the watch of three or four security agents who interrogated them to reveal who had organized their exit.
Neither of them said a word.
After hours of pressure, those in charge changed their tone: "You are young. We understand that anyone can fill your heads with ideas. Everyone makes mistakes. We will let you finish the championship."
Carabeo did not interpret that as generosity.
He was leading the home runs department of the tournament with three home runs, and Quintana had performed well from the mound. "They needed us because they were going to compete for the gold medal. They let us finish the event," he stated. Cuba finished with the silver medal.
Two years of punishment upon returning
The apparent truce turned out to be a deferred trap.
One week after setting foot on Cuban soil, Carabeo received a summons to appear before the national commissioner, the provincial commissioner, and others whom he did not know.
The sentence was two years of disqualification from playing baseball in Cuba.
Carabeo reminded them of what was promised in Mexico: «But didn't you tell us that everything would stay there?».
The response was that attempting to leave the delegation could not go without consequences.
His response summarized the contradiction: “Now that we are in Cuba? But when it was needed, they let us compete in the championship.”
The sanctions against Carabeo and Quintana were confirmed in July 2022.
Two other members of that delegation, Alfredo Fadraga and Yosvany Ávalos, faced worse fate: they managed to physically leave the hotel, were captured by the police in Aguascalientes, handed over to the Cuban delegation, and sentenced to a lifetime ban upon returning to the island.
Other similar cases
In August 2026, during the Central American and Caribbean Games in Santo Domingo, Dominican authorities detected alleged Cuban agents without accreditation monitoring athletes within the sports venues, some disguised in uniforms of other delegations, which led to the expulsion of nine Cuban diplomats from that country.
Just days before the interview with Carabeo was published, two Cuban weightlifters left the delegation in Tepic, Mexico during the Pan American weightlifting qualifiers for Lima 2027, adding to the long list of athletes who have chosen to flee as the only path to freedom.
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