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 portion 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 revenues are estimated to provide GAESA with $700 million annually. Other key entities include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport – engaged in import and export, TRD Caribe – a chain of retail supermarkets that operate in foreign currencies, the Unión de Construcciones Militares, Inmobiliaria Almest, the company responsible for the Mariel Integrated Development Zone (Zdimsa), and a company providing port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). Also on this list is the Cimex Corporation, which operates retail stores, fuel stations, a network of cafeterias, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate agencies, and banks in Cuba, among other interests, as well as Habaguanex, a corporation that previously belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana and currently operates over 300 establishments including restaurants, stores, markets, cafeterias, and 16 hotels and hostels with a total of 546 rooms across various categories. Because of this, it has been claimed that GAESA controls 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 military man and frequently visited the Castro home. 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, and the head of Personal Security for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, making it common to see him 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 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 was using 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 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 officials 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 policy shift towards Cuba, imposed 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 Cuban military personnel, 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, was seen 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 aims to gain absolute 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, which reaffirms Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the main brain 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 including him on the list of blocked individuals 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 a cardiorespiratory arrest.
