SLP, Mexico.- The surname of the Davalos, has sparked controversy in recent weeks since a photo of the actress Ana de Armas with Manuel Anido and together with Lourdes and Rodolfo, daughter and father, defense team of the dictatorship in the London trials for the millionaire debt, emerged in the Spanish media. of the Central Bank of Cuba.
Dávalos Abogados is a Cuban-Spanish firm specialized in foreign transactions and investments in Cubaand has served as the regime’s legal shield.
“We are the first Spanish-Cuban boutique commercial law firm specialized in complex international matters with Cuba. Our activity focuses on advising companies on their trade and investment initiatives in that country,” they boast on their website.
The Dávalos have been a fundamental player in international litigation where the Cuban Government has taken part; especially in those processes where he has been implicated in breaches of contracts, confiscations, accumulated debts, deception of businessmen, blackmail, espionage, etc.
Rodolfo Dávalos Fernández He advised the first major foreign investment made in Cuba in the late 1990s by the Spanish group Sol-Meliá and participated in the creation of off-shore companies in Panama and Europe.
His name, associated with the Mossack Fonseca law firm, was one of the first to appear when the Panama Papers scandal broke out, and he also appeared in Panamanian commercial registries as secretary of companies that, in turn, link him to the Italian Mauro Casagrandi, who worked as an agent for the Cuban secret services until his break with the regime in the early 1990s.
A family and an emporium
The Dávalos emporium has expanded outside Cuba but also inside, where they have businesses and properties in their name.
These trusted partners of the Castro leadership have two large houses in the Playa municipality, in the Cuban capital.
One of them had belonged to the family for years and the other was acquired by Lourdes Dávalos, Rodolfo’s daughter, an associate at the Uría Menéndez law firm, one of the most important in Europe, specialized in Commercial Law.
The two houses are on the same block, at 11, between 44 and 46, Playa. The new acquisition of Lourdes belonged to Carlos Pérez León, former Minister of Agriculture in the 90s.
According to the advertisements of RevolicProperties with one floor and at least two bedrooms, in that area of Playa, range around $50,000, but costs increase if the house has more than one floor and more rooms.
The properties similar Those owned by the Dávalos are offered up to $280,000.
At that address of 11, between 44 and 46, the number of Rodolfo Dávalos (son) is registered in the ETECSA directory, who in 2016 founded the company Caribbean Ventures Management LLC, incorporated in the state of Delaware, but with an office in Coral Gables, Miami.
The “small” business emerged in the heat of the thaw promoted by the Obama administration and focused on search operations and management of gastronomy services in Cuba.
Dávalos Jr. is also very well connected with the highest levels of Castro’s power and with American democrats, as demonstrated by his photos with the late General Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja —former owner of GAESA—, the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Ben Rhodes—Obama-era Deputy National Security Advisor—and Senator Patrick Leahy.
