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), considered a powerful military consortium of the armed forces that controls a significant part of the most important sectors of the Cuban economy.
Among its most profitable groups is Gaviota, which manages the island's most productive hotels, with revenues estimated to bring GAESA $700 million annually. Other notable entities include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport, involved in import and export; TRD Caribe, which operates retail supermarkets selling in foreign currency; the Unión de Construcciones Militares; Inmobiliaria Almest; the company responsible for the Mariel Comprehensive Development Zone (Zdimsa); and a company providing port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). Additionally, there is the Cimex Corporation, which owns retail stores, fuel stations, a network of cafés, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate businesses, and banks in Cuba, among other interests. Habaguanex, a corporation that belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana, now comprises over 300 establishments, including restaurants, shops, markets, cafés, and 16 hotels and hostels totaling 546 rooms of various categories. Because of all this, it has been claimed 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 man close to Raúl Castro. Like his father, he was a soldier and frequently 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 is the personal security chief of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, which often sees him accompanying his grandfather both inside and outside of Cuba.
Regarding Vilma Rodríguez Castro, she made headlines in 2019 when it was revealed that she owned a lavish mansion that she rented out through the AIRBNB platform in the Miramar neighborhood for $600 a night. Thanks to this portal, it was also confirmed that she owned other luxurious properties on the island for the same purpose, and that she herself was a user of the website, booking accommodations of similar caliber 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 American 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), starting with GAESA due to its role in enriching the Cuban military, whom Trump holds accountable for what he describes as "the repression and human rights violations in Cuba."
López-Calleja, a low-profile man who avoids cameras and the press and seldom makes public appearances, surfaced as part of the delegations led by the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel that traveled to Russia to meet with Putin and to New York for the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations. This was interpreted as evidence that the FAR intends to seize absolute power over the island. Similarly, the newly appointed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz comes from a long career in the tourism sector, where he served as the first vice president of Grupo Gaviota, further confirming Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the main strategist and central figure where the key pathways of the Cuban economy begin and end.
On September 30, 2020, the United States government sanctioned López-Calleja by placing him on the list of blocked persons by the Department of the Treasury (SDN), which entails the freezing of his assets under U.S. jurisdiction and a visa ban for travel to the United States.
He passed away in Havana on July 1, 2022, due to cardiac arrest.
