LIMA, Peru – A Cuban MSME bought five million dollars worth of jacuzzis in the United States, thus contravening the conditions of use of the licenses granted by Washington for the export of goods to the Island.
The information, reviewed by the independent media Cuban Diarytranscends into public documents from the Miami-Dade County Tax Collector’s Office. In contrast, the provisions that authorize export licenses for companies based in the United States establish specific conditions: the products must be used to “satisfy the needs of the Cuban people,” they cannot be re-exported to third countries, nor used to generate income primarily for the Government, nor be sold or leased to state entities.
With these bases, the American company Martel Express US, based in Hialeah, Florida, obtained an export license in November 2023 from the Bureau of Industry and Security of the United States Department of Commerce to make sales to Cuba through the private MSME MIKA SRL, based in the Playa municipality of Havana.
According to official documentation, MIKA appears registered in the Cuban business directory as a business dedicated to sawing and planing wood. However, authorized purchases include products such as hot tubs, raising questions about the actual destination of the goods.
The final beneficiaries of these imports would be several Cuban state companies, including MAQUIMPORT, ALIMPEX, Servicios Automotores SA (SASA), ENCOMIL, Cítricos Caribe, Gran Comercial, DIVEP and the ITH marketing group, linked to the Ministry of Tourism, which would have been the recipient of the jacuzzis for hotel facilities.
All of these entities have been authorized since 2022 to carry out foreign trade operations with Cuban non-state management forms. However, the license reveals a total amount of purchases from the US for 2,227 million dollars, a figure considered implausible. In addition, there are at least two other licenses granted to Martel Express US in favor of MIKA, one of them for $75.22 million.
