Havana/The second payment for the restitution of stolen funds of the Grand Lodge of Cuba was made last week by the former great teacher of the institution, Mario Urquía Carreño, and the former great treasurer, Airam Cervera Reigosa. The amount was four million pesos, which add to million delivered last August.
According to Cubanetwhich had access to the document, in a circular sent to the members of the Brotherhood and signed by Mayker Filema Duarte – current Grand Master despite many reject it because it is considered an infiltrate of the regime -, it is clarified that “this sum of five million, which is what is collected, was deposited in its entirety to the account of the Grand Lodge of Cuba”.
Both deposits were made in the name of Cervera, although it is understood that they are part of the agreement to reintegrate the funds to which both the former treasurer and Urquía committed.
The document does not indicate, however, if the delivery was made personally – currently the legal situation of Urquía and Cervera is unknown – or if, as happened on the previous occasion, it ran to the authorities of the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Justice and the National Bank of Cuba. Then, several Masonic groups pointed out that the transaction was nothing more than a “staging of delivery” that sought to show transparency and institutional control after months of rumors and internal tensions.
The total amount to which the payments must amount to the documents that have come to light indicate that Filema Duarte denounced, after occupying the position of Grand Master, which Urquía and Cervero would have manipulated bank account states and falsified invoices to appropriate another 2.1 million pesos (about $ 17,600 to the official change), is also unknown. The investigation also revealed that they were registered as “losses” $ 2,700 that, in reality, had been stolen.
To this is added the theft of $ 19,000 from the former Grand Master’s office, money belonging to the Masonic National Asylum
To this is added the theft of $ 19,000 from the former Grand Master’s office, money belonging to the Masonic National Asylum and detonated the current Cuban Freemasonry crisis. In August of last year Urquo promised to return the money, admitting that he was “responsible” for safeguarding him, but not guilty of theft. The total number of the embezzlement rises to more than $ 40,000, according to calculations disclosed by the Gran Lodge directive itself.
Cuban Freemasonry has at least 2023 plunged into its worst crisis, from the departure of its then great teacher to Mexico. According to data provided to this newspaper by an internal source, there are currently 327 lodges in the country and a total record of 48,000 members. Of these, only about 20,000 remain within the island, which represents an exodus of more than 50% of the registered masons.
In recent months, tensions have risen. In July, after attending a citation that became interrogation With the Police, the Sovereign Great Commander, José Ramón Viñas Alonso, and the elected Grand Master, Alberto Kessel Linares, were released with open criminal proceedings. As Viñas explained then, the authorities questioned their “many” trips abroad and asked where he got the money. Ultimately, a criminal process was opened against him for “currency traffic.”
Cuban Freemasonry has at least 2023 plunged into its worst crisis, from the departure of its then great teacher to Mexico
“It is intended to be linked to a non -personal agreement, but has unanimously taken the board of the need for the need to [cubrir] Several expenses in national currency in the asylum and not counting on this currency. As an agreement, to the change on two occasions this year, this change between the siblings of the Board of Trustees), where 100 dollars for national currency has been changed, ”he explained, something that the authorities consider traffic when making the change in“ the black market ”, to 1 for 370 pesos – as the institution did -, and not in a bank at the change rate of 1 dollar for 120.
At the beginning of this July, a group of Masons He gathered on the Grand Lodge Portal to protest against the decision to celebrate a session of their high camera they considered illegitimate. The meeting had been convened by Filema Duarte, who was dismissed from his position as a great teacher in a “irrevocable” way last May and, under the protection of the Ministry of Justice, refuses to abandon the leadership of the order.
The protest rose when those who were inside the lodge cut the passage to the Masons, who forced their entrance claiming that the headquarters belonged to them. In addition to the high camera session, Kessel’s previous day was another of the protest triggers.
