The regime now points to a Cuban citizen residing in Miami.
MIAMI, United States. – The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) of the Cuban regime exposed this Saturday a new alleged case of “illegal financial operations” that, according to its version, would have moved more than 1,000 million Cuban pesos and about 250,000 US dollars between February and October of this year, outside the banking system and taking advantage of the informal market rate published by the independent media. theTouch.
The investigation points to Humberto Julio Mora Caballero, a Cuban from Camagüey living in Miami, whom the authorities present as the organizer of a network of illegal currency trafficking and retention of family remittances sent from the United States, according to a dispatch from the Cuban News Agency (ACN) and a report from the Caribbean Channel.
According to the official version, supported by statements by Lieutenant Colonel Yisnel Rivero Crespo, head of the Department of Economic Crimes of the MININT Instruction Body, the “operation” consisted of collecting dollars in the United States and delivering national currency to Cuba, “according to the illegal rate disseminated by the digital counterrevolutionary site theTouch”.
With these funds, Mora Caballero would have financed wholesale purchases for Cuban MSMEs, which had to compensate him in cash with retail sales. The official specified that the financier obtained profits in two ways: he charged between 8 and 12% to relatives in the United States for the distribution of remittances, and he demanded a similar margin from MSMEs for the import of merchandise.
The MININT assures that in July a first operation was carried out against one of the “criminal chains” articulated by Mora Caballero, in which assets and cash were seized and its members were prosecuted. However, the report states that, thanks to “million-dollar solvency,” the alleged leader rebuilt the structure and continued operating, until a second confrontation action in October.
The main base of operations in Cuba would have been in Camagüey, from where, according to the official story, vehicles hired by Mora himself left to collect large volumes of cash in Havana and other provinces, transfer them to Camagüey and then distribute them through a network in charge of distributing remittances in national currency.
The scheme, presented as a “criminal network” that operates “beyond all legislation” and “all our financial institutions”, would be based on around 30 bank accounts in the name of third parties in the United States, used – according to the MININT – to move money and pay foreign suppliers. Part of the official discourse insists that the money from remittances remains “kidnapped” in US territory and does not enter the Cuban financial system through legal channels.
The emphasis of the report is on the supposed macroeconomic impact of these practices. Rivero Crespo and other specialists interviewed affirm that it is “a currency that is not fresh,” while in Cuba cash is distributed in pesos that already circulate in the national economy. The official narrative attributes part of the national currency deficit in the banking system, the liquidity limitations in ATMs, and the cash shortage perceived by the population to these schemes.
The case is also presented as a factor that “directly affects the Cuban economy,” by preventing the legal entry of foreign currency through remittances, weakening the solvency of the banking system and stimulating tax evasion due to the massive use of cash outside of electronic channels. Currency trafficking is described as a “business that obtains million-dollar profits at the expense of the Cuban people and economy” and it is insisted that it constitutes a crime both in Cuba and under “international legislation.”
On the political level, the report inscribes the case within the thesis of the “economic war” organized from the United States. The authorities claim to have transferred information about the scheme to the US authorities “without obtaining a response”, which is interpreted as a functional “inaction” to an alleged external program aimed at “depressing the income level of the population” by manipulating the exchange rate. The official discourse maintains that “conducts like these contribute directly and in a very positive way to compliance with the guidelines of their own policy (…) of economic war to (…) overthrow the Cuban revolution at any price.”
One of the most sensitive elements of the case has to do with the private sector. The television material recognizes that the financier relies on holders of non-state management forms that “precisely demand the availability of foreign currency to be able to finance their own imports.” However, it is emphasized that the payment of these MSMEs to financiers does not have to be made with the cash collected in their commercial activity, which would make it easier for them not to deposit their income in banks. On that basis, the MININT officer concludes that “they are practically victims and perpetrators at the same time because they are also violating the regulations themselves, the Cuban regulations that force this form of non-state management to make deposits of their income in the banking system.”
The final message seeks to allay the fear of a new direct blow against MSMEs, but at the same time places them under suspicion: “Sources from the Ministry of the Interior make it clear that the confrontation is not to attack MSMEs. These (…) are necessary for the country. What it is about, they emphasize, is cutting illegal flows that affect the Cuban economy.” The case is thus presented as part of a “zero tolerance policy against economic crimes, in defense of the country’s institutions and financial sovereignty,” published the ACN.
The media treatment of the case repeats common patterns in the police and economic coverage of the Cuban state press system. The public only has access to the MININT version and no basic data is offered about the procedural situation of the accused, the types of crimes charged, the specific evidence or the identity and rights of the others involved. The report also does not contrast the real weight of the aforementioned figures – 1,000 million pesos and 250,000 dollars in eight months – with the total volume of remittances and transactions in the informal market, nor does it address the causes that push families and entrepreneurs to resort to unofficial channels: the gap between the state exchange rate and the market, the shortage of foreign currency in banks and the restrictions on international operations of the private sector.
The emphasis on the “illegal rate spread by the digital counterrevolutionary site theTouch” and the repeated allusion to the informal currency market inscribe the file in a broader offensive by the Cuban regime against theTouch and against unofficial currency price formation mechanisms. This offensive – political, media and now also criminal – is key to understanding the context in which this new “criminal network” is presented.
