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 large 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 and whose revenue is estimated to provide GAESA with $700 million annually. Other notable businesses include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport, which handle imports and exports; TRD Caribe, a retail supermarket chain that operates in foreign currency; Unión de Construcciones Militares; the real estate company Almest; the firm responsible for the Mariel Comprehensive Development Zone (Zdimsa); and a company providing port, customs, transport, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). Also included in this list is Corporación Cimex, which owns retail stores, gas stations, a network of cafeterias, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate firms, and banks in Cuba, among other interests. Additionally, Habaguanex, a corporation that belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana, currently manages over 300 facilities, including restaurants, stores, markets, cafeterias, and 16 hotels and hostels that collectively offer 546 rooms of various categories. Because of all this, it has been stated that Gaesa controls 70% of the island's economy.
López-Calleja is the son of General Guillermo Rodríguez del Pozo, head of the Medical Services of the Armed Forces and the National Civil Defense Staff, a close associate of Raúl Castro. Like his father, he was a military man who frequently visited the Castro household and married Déborah Castro Espín, the eldest daughter of Raúl and Vilma Espín. Together, they 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 often sees him accompanying his grandfather both within Cuba and abroad.
Regarding Vilma Rodríguez Castro, she made headlines in 2019 when it was revealed that she owned an extravagant 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 out for the same purpose, and that she herself used the website to book stays of a 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 the 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 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 doing business with Cuban companies owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), starting with GAESA due to the enrichment of the Cuban military, which Trump blames for what he refers to as "the repression and human rights violations in Cuba."
López-Calleja, a low-profile man, elusive before cameras and the press, and rarely seen in public, appeared as part of the delegations led by the ruler 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 intends to gain absolute power over the island. Similarly, the newly appointed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz comes from a long career in tourism, where he served as the first vice president of the Gaviota Group, further confirming Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the main mastermind and the focal point where the main pathways of the Cuban economy begin and end.
On September 30, 2020, the U.S. government sanctioned López-Calleja by including him on the list of individuals blocked by the Department of the Treasury (SDN), which means 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 a cardiorespiratory arrest.
