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 most productive hotels on the island and whose revenue is estimated to generate $700 million annually for GAESA. This is joined by Tecnotex and Tecnoimport—import and export companies, TRD Caribe—retail supermarkets operating in foreign currency, the Union of Military Constructions, Almest Realty, the company responsible for the Mariel Comprehensive Development Zone (Zdimsa), and a firm providing port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). Also included is Corporación Cimex, which owns retail stores, fuel stations, a network of cafeterias, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate businesses, 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 has over 300 establishments, including restaurants, stores, markets, cafeterias, and 16 hotels and hostels totaling 546 rooms across various categories. For all these reasons, 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. A military man like his father, he often visited the Castro home and married Déborah Castro Espín, the firstborn of Raúl and Vilma Espín, with whom he had two children: Vilmita Rodríguez Castro and Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as “El Cangrejo” for having been born with six fingers on one hand. He serves as the Personal Security Chief for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, which means he is often seen accompanying his grandfather both in Cuba and abroad.
As for 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 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 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 allegedly 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, launched 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 blames for what he calls "the repression and human rights violations in Cuba."
López-Calleja, a man of low profile, elusive before the cameras and the press, and seldom appearing in public, was seen as part of the delegations led by the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel that traveled to Russia for meetings 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 gain absolute power over 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, which once again confirms Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the main mastermind and the pivotal figure where the primary 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 blocked individuals by the Department of the Treasury (SDN), which implies the freezing of his assets under U.S. jurisdiction and the prohibition of visas for traveling to the United States.
He passed away in Havana on July 1, 2022, due to cardiac arrest.
