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 yield GAESA $700 million annually. Other notable entities include Tecnotex and Tecnoimport—focused on import and export, TRD Caribe—retail supermarkets selling in foreign currency, the Union of Military Constructions, the Almest Real Estate Company, the organization responsible for the Mariel Comprehensive Development Zone (Zdimsa), and a company providing port, customs, transportation, and wholesale services (Almacenes Universales). This list also includes 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, and Habaguanex, a corporation that belonged to the Office of the Historian of Havana, currently comprising over 300 establishments including restaurants, stores, markets, cafeterias, and 16 hotels and hostels with a total of 546 rooms across different categories. For all these reasons, it has been asserted 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 close associate of Raúl Castro. A military man like his father, he frequently visited the Castro household 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" due to being born with six fingers on one hand. He serves as the Personal Security Chief for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, making it common to see him accompanying his grandfather both inside and outside of Cuba.
Regarding Vilma Rodríguez Castro, she made headlines in 2019 after her lavish mansion was revealed, which she was renting out through the AIRBNB portal 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 utilized for the same purpose, and that she herself was a user of the website, booking similar accommodations 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 would 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, launched 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 enrichment of the Cuban military, whom 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 making public appearances, appeared as part of the delegations led by the ruling Miguel Díaz-Canel that traveled to Russia to meet 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 seize absolute power on the island. Similarly, the newly appointed Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz comes from a long background 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 pivotal figure at the nexus of Cuba's economic pathways.
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 ban on visas to travel to the United States.
He passed away in Havana on July 1, 2022, due to a cardiorespiratory arrest.
