Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja (Cuba, 1960-2022). Major General of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Executive President of the Business Administration Group, S.A. (GAESA or GAE), regarded as a powerful military consortium within the armed forces that controls a significant portion of the most important sectors of the Cuban economy.
Among its most profitable groups is Gaviota, which manages the most productive hotels on the island and is estimated to generate 700 million dollars annually for GAESA. Other companies include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport – involved in import and export, TRD Caribe – retail supermarkets selling in foreign currencies, Unión de Construcciones Militares, the real estate company Almest, the firm responsible for the Mariel Special Economic Zone (Zdimsa), and a company offering port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). Also on this list is the Cimex Corporation, which operates retail stores, gas stations, a network of cafeterias, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate, and banks, among other interests, as well as Habaguanex, a corporation that belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana and currently operates over 300 establishments, including restaurants, stores, markets, cafeterias, and 16 hotels and hostels with a total of 546 rooms of various categories. For all these reasons, it has been stated that GAESA controls 70% of the island's economy.
López-Calleja is the son of Major General Guillermo Rodríguez del Pozo, head of the Medical Services of the FAR and of the National Civil Defense Staff, a man close to Raúl Castro. Like his father, he was a military man and often visited the Castro household. He married Déborah Castro Espín, the eldest daughter of Raúl and Vilma Espín, with whom he had two children: Vilmita Rodríguez Castro and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as “El Cangrejo” for being born with six fingers on one hand. He serves as the Personal Security Chief for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, which is why he is often seen accompanying his grandfather both in Cuba and abroad.
Regarding Vilma Rodríguez Castro, she made headlines in 2019 when it was revealed that she owned an extravagant mansion that she rented out through the AIRBNB portal in the Miramar neighborhood for $600 a night. Thanks to this platform, it was also confirmed that she owned other luxurious properties on the island that she used for the same purpose, and that she herself was a user of the site, booking accommodations of a similar category in places like Geneva, Paris, and New York.
In 2016, the name López-Calleja appeared on the list of the world's most corrupt men compiled by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). According to statements made in 2018 by U.S. diplomat Roger Noriega, who served as ambassador to the Organization of American States and as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs during George W. Bush's administration, Cuban military personnel, under López-Calleja's command, were reportedly directly involved in cocaine trafficking from the Venezuelan port of La Guaira to Europe and West Africa.
Donald Trump, in his shift in policy towards Cuba, imposed a ban on U.S. companies from doing business with Cuban companies owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), using GAESA as a starting point due to enriching the Cuban military, whom Trump holds responsible for what he terms "the repression and human rights violations in Cuba."
López-Calleja, a low-profile man, elusive in front of cameras and the press, and rarely making public appearances, was seen as part of the delegations led by the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel that traveled to Russia, where they met with Putin, and to New York to attend the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations. This was interpreted as evidence that the FAR aims to seize absolute power on the island. Similarly, the newly appointed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz comes from a long background in tourism, having served as the first vice president of the Gaviota Group, which further confirms Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the principal mastermind and the focal point where the main pathways of the Cuban economy begin and end.
On September 30, 2020, the United States government sanctioned López-Calleja by including him on the list of individuals blocked by the Department of the Treasury (SDN), which entails the freezing of his assets under U.S. jurisdiction and a visa ban for traveling to the United States.
He passed away in Havana on July 1, 2022, due to a cardiopulmonary arrest.
