Havana Cuba. – “From batteries and tool boxes to screws, everything is sold on the black market. Intercepting an illegal exit is a very profitable business for border guards in Cuba”, he told CubaNet a young man from Havana who is currently in Active Military Service, in the Border Guard Unit located in Guanabo.
The young man, who demanded anonymity for fear of reprisals, said that “there is a lot of money invested in a boat; batteries are sold for up to 20,000 CUP and are almost always new, because life is at stake. The tools are coveted and sell for more than 10,000 CUP. Every boat carries a toolbox to be able to solve any problem that arises on the journey and these are the ones that are sold the fastest”.
Justifying the absence of certain components when handing over a seized boat to the high command is easy for the officers and shift leaders, who allege that the boats “were thrown into the sea by the rafters in the middle of the persecution.”
“This way they can steal anything and nothing happens,” says the interviewee.
In the midst of the current fuel crisis in Cuba, oil is another of the very valuable things that a boat carries with it for an escape from the country and from which the officers earn a lot of money.
“Almost always they are more than 100 liters, right now at about 110 pesos each. We are talking about another 10,000 that officers pocket. We recruits do not see a single weight of any of this and we are the ones who do the most risky and cumbersome work. They send us ahead to put our chests out because sometimes there are confrontations with the rafters and we have to stop people who are desperate and that is dangerous. Mobile phones are prohibited and the pass is every 25 days for only five days off”, added the young man.
A system of informants who are rewarded with the benefit of “letting them fish in the area in cameras or improvised boats,” even though it is prohibited for most Cubans, makes it easier to locate the rafters.
“The border guards have many informants who are a few miles from the coast fishing in makeshift foam boats or truck cameras. Fishing that way is prohibited, but for the informants it is not like that”, he commented to CubaNet Rosney Costa, a resident of Guanabo.
“Informants are allowed to fish in the area and that is prohibited. I know some who even give them oil tanker phones [móviles con saldo asignado por el Estado] and as soon as they see a boat trying to leave they call and report the location. (…) Here, out of 100 illegal exits, 10 or less manage to advance; the vast majority are intercepted on land or within a few meters of the coast,” he added.
For his part, Famada Hernández, a young man who was captured in an escape attempt by sea several weeks ago, told CubaNet: “They caught us just 15 meters from the coast, they came out of nowhere and we didn’t have time to escape. The curious thing about the case is that several days later I saw an advertisement in revolico.com published by a person from Havana selling the same toolbox that we took for the journey (…), the oil pump, the injectors, the alternator and the starter motor. We could not claim anything; They are the worst mafia that the planet has given.”
Since October 1, 2021, the start of the current fiscal year, US Coast Guard crews have intercepted 3,369 Cuban raftersa figure that exceeds the number of migrants from the Island intercepted each fiscal year from 2017 to 2021.
According to the agency, the statistics have behaved as follows: 5,396 Cubans intercepted in fiscal year 2016; 1,468 in 2017; 259 in 2018; 313 in 2019; 49 in 2020 and 838 in 2021.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +1 (786) 316-2072, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
