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 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, generating an estimated annual revenue of $700 million for GAESA. Other notable companies include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport – involved in import and export; TRD Caribe – retail supermarkets for currency sales; the Unión de Construcciones Militares; the real estate company Almest; the entity responsible for the Mariel Comprehensive Development Zone (Zdimsa); and a company providing port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). This list also includes the Cimex Corporation, which operates retail stores, fuel stations, a network of cafés, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate firms, and banks in Cuba, among other interests. Additionally, there is Habaguanex, a corporation that belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana and currently encompasses over 300 establishments, including restaurants, stores, markets, cafés, and 16 hotels and hostels with a total of 546 rooms of 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 the National Civil Defense Staff, a close associate of Raúl Castro. A military man like his father, he often visited the Castro home 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 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 a lavish mansion that she was renting out through the AIRBNB platform 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 rented for the same purpose, and that she herself was a user of the site, booking similar accommodations in places like Geneva, Paris, and New York.
In 2016, the name López-Calleja appeared on the list of the most corrupt men in the world, 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 policy shift towards Cuba, launched a ban on companies from the United States conducting business with Cuban companies owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), starting with GAESA due to its enrichment of the Cuban military, whom Trump blames for what he calls “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 seen making public appearances, was seen as part of the delegations led by the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, which traveled to Russia to meet 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 take complete control of 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 the Gaviota Group, further solidifying Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the main brain and key figure where the main paths of the Cuban economy both begin and end.
On September 30, 2020, the United States government sanctioned López-Calleja by including him on the list of blocked persons by the Department of the Treasury (SDN), which implies 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.
