MIAMI, United States.- Cubans inside and outside the island have reacted on social networks to the investigation published this Monday in CubaNet The business of online stores: who is behind Supermarket23which exposes, as part of a government strategy called “border sale,” the close ties to the Havana regime of a network of foreign companies.
“If it wasn’t like that, it would have already exploded, the old people preach communism and the children live capitalism, this system is the perfect means of exploitation,” Juan Carlos Alfonso, one of the many Cubans who have posted their reactions to the attack, said on Facebook. regard.
For his part, a user named Adrián Cantillo-Ruiz assured that “the ALCONA, SA Mercantile Society is not the only one dedicated to catching all Cuban emigrants as idiots…”. This case, he said, has been denounced as a result of an investigation, “hopefully other investigations will take place that will be surprised at everything they do, direct and increase the coffers of those who in each address ask the people for austerity.”
“None of that group of criminals wants things to get out of hand, because they would have lost their great company ´La Revolución SA´”
Another user suggested that a section dedicated to “trafficking of works of art, documents, and other items of historical and patrimonial value that have been traded outside of Cuba since the 1980s” be added to the investigation.
Claudia Padrón’s investigation has uncovered the entire mechanism behind Supermarket23, an online store that sells Cuban products at extremely high prices that cannot be purchased in physical stores in the country. However, from abroad anyone with a Visa or Mastercard can buy food and medicine.
“It had been known for a long time, you just had to name it”; “What a pain, they talked about one thing and have done something else that doesn’t even seem like it, and never in Cuba have things cost so much. Gross”; “They are the first criminals and millionaires, then they ask the people to resist a little more. Ostrich face”, are some of the comments on social networks.
“This leaves me speechless and stunned, my family abroad uses this company to help us financially, what’s more, I never thought that this company would be sponsored by the greats of this country,” was the reflection of a Cuban on the island.
“Will these “entrepreneurs” be helped by the “engagement” proposed by lobbyists for the Cuban regime in the US? Meanwhile, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo, and hundreds of people in prison for asking for freedom,” journalist Norges Rodríguez claimed on his Twitter account, along with the report.
Who’s behind
According to the investigation, Supermarket23 is an initiative promoted by the Cuban state company Alcona, an entity that is part of the state business group Flora and Fauna, led by one of the last commanders of the Revolution who are still alive: Guillermo García Frías.
Supermarket23, despite being presented as a foreign company not linked to the regime, since it is registered in Canada and the United States, actually has behind it a network of companies in different countries created by people who worked for Alcona or for a related company to Alcona. The foreign company with which Alcona markets is called Treew, as this investigation was able to establish.
“Supermarket23, although it is the best known, is just one of more than a dozen almost identical stores that operate as part of a state strategy that they call “border sales.” The food that there is not in the country, the medicines that do not appear either, they have them.”
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