Ex-major Rogelio Enrique Bolufé Izquierdo, detained with cocaine, has no legal status in the U.S.
14ymedio, Havana, August 23, 2025 — Held in a Texas detention center in the custody of the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE), a former Major in the Cuban Ministry of the Interior, Rogelio Enrique Bolufé Izquierdo, faces potential deportation after being arrested in Florida for possession of cocaine. With Ecuadorian nationality and legal residence in Mexico, both countries are among the possible destinations if an immigration judge orders his departure from the U.S., where he has no legal status, instead of sending him to the Island, where he is officially considered a terrorist.
The information was disseminated by Martí Noticias, which cited sources close to Bolufé and the case, including his son, who described the arrest of the former soldier on August 17 as “odd.” “It’s weird that he was arrested for drugs. He drinks alcohol, but I didn’t know about the drugs,” said Carlos Rogelio Bolufé García, a close friend of Sandro, Fidel Castro’s grandson/influencer.
According to the media, Bolufé does not have a work or residence permit in the U.S., but he did in Mexico, where he ran a bar in Yucatán called La Nota before emigrating to the U.S. in January 2020. The former soldier also has Ecuadorian nationality after marrying a citizen of that country.
Although there is no court decision yet on his future, his transfer from Florida to a Texas detention center and the reports collected by Martí Noticias suggest that he may be deported.
His transfer from Florida to a Texas detention center and the reports collected by Martí Noticias suggest that he may be deported.
Further details about his arrest, which took place in Hialeah during a routine police check, were also revealed. The agents stopped his vehicle and searched it, finding in his pants a bag with white powder that looked like cocaine. According to the authorities’ report, Bolufé offered no resistance.
The case of the former soldier has gained public attention for his alleged history within the security apparatus of the Island regime. He said that he lived for awhile in the home of Fidel Castro and that he is included on the terrorist list published by Havana, in which they describe Bolufé as a “ringleader” of the organization La Nueva Nación Cubana, which orchestrated sabotage against the national electricity system.
However, many doubt that Bolufé is really a deserter from the Ministry of the Interior, for which he declared having worked for 15 years, and they point to him as a possible spy or “double agent” of the regime in Miami. In the ex-soldier’s own statements after arriving -with a tourist visa – in the U.S. in 2020, he said that he had not deserted and that, nevertheless, he would be the “liberator of Cuba,” fueled suspicions.
He commented in an interview with a Miami media, “I have not deserted and will not desert, because I am proud of what I am.” He also claimed that many military personnel on the island are aware that they were working for a dictatorship and disagree with the government.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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