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 Administrative Group, S.A. (GAESA or GAE), regarded as a powerful military consortium of 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 island's most productive hotels and is estimated to generate $700 million annually for GAESA. Other notable entities include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport—focused on import and export—TRD Caribe, a retail supermarket chain that operates in foreign currency, the Unión de Construcciones Militares, Inmobiliaria Almest, the company responsible for the Mariel Integrated Development Zone (Zdimsa), and a port, customs, transport, and wholesale services company (Almacenes Universales). Additionally, there is the Cimex Corporation, which owns retail stores, fuel stations, a network of cafés, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate, and banks, among other interests, and Habaguanex, a corporation that belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana and currently encompasses over 300 establishments, including restaurants, shops, markets, cafés, and 16 hotels and hostels offering a total of 546 rooms across various categories. For all these reasons, it has been asserted that GAESA dominates 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 Headquarters, a man close to Raúl Castro. A military man like his father, he frequently visited the Castro household and 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” because he was born with six fingers on one hand, and he is the Chief of Personal Security for former Cuban ruler Raúl Castro, which is why he can often be seen accompanying his grandfather both inside and outside of Cuba.
As for Vilma Rodríguez Castro, she made headlines in 2019 when it was revealed that she owned a lavish mansion, which she rented out through the AIRBNB platform in the Miramar neighborhood for $600 a night. This platform 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 similar quality in places like Geneva, Paris, and New York.
In 2016, the name López-Calleja appeared on the list of the world's most corrupt individuals 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 said to be 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, implemented 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 the enrichment of the Cuban military, whom Trump holds responsible for what he describes as "the repression and human rights violations in Cuba."
López-Calleja, a man of low profile, elusive in front of cameras and the press, and rarely making public appearances, surfaced as part of the delegations led by ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel. They 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 intends to seize absolute power on the island. Similarly, the newly appointed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz comes from a long background in the tourism sector, having served as the first vice president of Grupo Gaviota, which once again confirms Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the principal mastermind and central figure from which the main paths of the Cuban economy begin and end.
On September 30, 2020, the United States government sanctioned López-Calleja by including him on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list of the Treasury Department, 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.
