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 conglomerate 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 is estimated to generate 700 million dollars annually for GAESA. Other notable entities include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport – focusing on import and export, TRD Caribe – retail supermarkets that operate in foreign currency, the Union of Military Constructions, Almest Real Estate, the company responsible for the Mariel Comprehensive Development Zone (Zdimsa), and a company providing port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). Also included in this list is the Cimex Corporation, which owns retail stores, gas stations, a network of cafés, photography studios, shipping companies, real estate firms, and banks in Cuba, among various other interests. Additionally, there is Habaguanex, a corporation that was a part of the Office of the Historian of Havana, currently comprising over 300 facilities including restaurants, stores, markets, cafés, and 16 hotels and hostels that offer a total of 546 rooms in different categories. Because of all this, it has been stated 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 close associate of Raúl Castro. A military man like his father, he frequently 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" for having been 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 in and out of Cuba.
Regarding Vilma Rodríguez Castro, she made headlines in 2019 when her lavish mansion, which she was renting out through AIRBNB in the Miramar neighborhood for $600 a night, came to light. Thanks to that 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 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 shift in policy toward Cuba, enacted a ban on U.S. companies doing business with Cuban companies owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), using GAESA as a starting point due to its enrichment of the Cuban military, which Trump holds responsible for what he calls "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 seize absolute power on the island. Likewise, the newly appointed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz comes from a long background in the tourism sector, where he served as the first vice president of the Gaviota Group, further affirming Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja as the primary mastermind and central figure where the main 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 individuals blocked by the Department of the Treasury (SDN), which entails the freezing of his assets under U.S. jurisdiction and a ban on visas for travel to the United States.
He passed away in Havana on July 1, 2022, due to cardiac arrest.
