“They punished him for his success and copied the Diplomamarket model for state-owned dollar stores,” says a source close to Frank Cuspinera.
14ymedio, Havana, May 29, 2025 — Frank Cuspinera, the Cuban-American owner of the Diplomarket (known as the “Cuban Costco”), has been in the Combinado del Este prison for almost a year awaiting trial, accused of tax evasion, currency trafficking and money laundering. This newspaper has reported on the letter he sent from prison, requesting help from the international community, mentioning the arbitrary nature of the acts committed against him by State Security and saying that on June 1, he will go on a hunger strike. Now 14ymedio has received more information about his case.
It comes from a family member who requests anonymity for fear of reprisals: “We are afraid of what may happen; here anything having to do with these issues doesn’t respond well to pressure.”
According to this source – whom we will call “Luis” – Cuspinera’s wife, Camila Castro, is at liberty in Havana but also faces the same charges, as the owner of another company associated with her husband, Kmila-mart SURL. It all started, says Luis, the same day they were both arrested, on June 20 of last year, with the arrival at Diplomarket of the National Office of Tax Administration (ONAT).
“They thought it would be a matter of a misunderstanding and that they would let them open the companies after it was resolved”
“They had a complaint for tax evasion, without having done at any time a prior audit,” he says. These officials “reviewed everything,” and after them, the Technical Directorate of Investigations (DTI) was introduced. The entrepreneurs were arrested, and “immediately” their business licenses were taken away from both Cuspinera SURL – the firm under which the supermarket operated – and Kmila-mart, leaving them “inoperable.”
For the couple it was, says Luis, a shock: “They thought it would be a matter of a misunderstanding, that they would let them open the companies after solving it and allow them to return the goods to some suppliers, or even that Frank could respond to the process on bail, but they have not agreed to any of this.” The authorities were, he says, “more severe and arbitrary as time went on.”
At the time of the arrest, the officials claimed “that the money from sales was not deposited in the bank and caused damage and discontent among the population,” says Luis. This is, in his view, “absurd,” since “neither State importers nor banks guaranteed the availability of dollars or transfers abroad for payments to suppliers even when the currency was deposited.”
“Here everyone knows that all the MSMEs engage in currency trafficking”
How is it that a successful businessman whose work was reported by the official press and who was even allowed to add his signature to ask the US president to lift the embargo, fell into disgrace? Luis dares to venture that it had to do precisely with the success achieved, and that the action of State Security demonstrates the arbitrariness they demonstrate with certain prohibitions.
“Here everyone knows that all the MSMEs* engage in currency trafficking, because when they made the law of private companies, it was done knowing that there would never be availability in the bank to obtain the currency legally. It is known that the largest percentage of everything traded in Cuba is imported products obtained with transactions in currency, because here nothing is produced, so you have to import to produce later,” he says. And he accuses them: “They let you run knowing that they have the power to take over when they don’t want you to run any more, and they choose businesses that got out of their hands in order to eliminate them.”
However, he observes, “the working model and way of operating of Diplomarket was totally copied: they implemented it in the current dollar stores, which opened in December with the store at 3rd and 70th. It was right after he gave them information at the Aldabó police unit in Boyeros about how he sold goods in dollars and maintained the replenishment cycle with his foreign suppliers by buying goods on consignment. If there is a legal way to do business in dollars with foreign suppliers, why was it forbidden to the private sector?”
What this source categorically denies is that Cuspinera was a front man for the regime
While confirming that Cuspinera had a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to export from the US to Cuba, Luis is clear: “Frank found the most legal way possible to do these transactions between Cuba and the US without going through any State institution, and that scared them and did not agree with them. Or he found the same way they use to do transactions with the US, because it is known that Cuba buys American chicken. Yes, it is possible to trade with the US directly for natural persons with a private business in Cuba, but they cannot allow it.”
What this source categorically denies is that Cuspinera was a front man for the regime or that he was associated with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, alias El Cangrejo [The Crab], the bodyguard for his grandfather, Raúl. “They were not protected by anyone; if they were this would not have happened, but I am sure that State Security was aware of what Frank was doing,” he says.
About El Cangrejo, he speculates that, being the son of the late Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja, who was director of the Group of Business Administration (Gaesa), he could inherit his father’s business. “There are many companies that have been following the game for years, and it may be that Frank was competing with them,” he ventures. “Just imagine the parcel companies, for example, that felt threatened by a store that brings products directly from the American market. The clientele went to the Diplomarket for that reason.”
One hypothesis is that these companies, “already coupled with Gaesa to work here satisfactorily, exerted some pressure, and it was decided to dissolve Cuspinera’s business in this severe way.”
Frank has no history of illegal exit from the country or any criminal record
It is unfair, for example, to keep him in jail without bail because of the
risk that he will evade justice. “The reasons why bail was denied are absurd. Frank has no history of illegal exit from the country or any criminal record. In addition, his mother, father, uncles and wife live in Cuba. There are legal alternatives to restrict his release other than prison,” he says.
As for the lawyer Cuspinera pointed to in his letter, he says that he was not independent: “They hired him, but the lawyers here are not really committed to their client. The arrogance of the DTI and the Prosecutor made him consider that it was better to lower his head before causing trouble and losing a supposed prestige they believe he has. In addition, the laws of Cuba are designed to tie lawyers’ hands.”
In any case, the family can’t explain why, almost a year after being locked up in a maximum security prison like the Combinado del Este of Havana, “they still do not close the investigation.” They have not yet “made a report with some amount of debt that supports the crime of tax evasion.” They have not even returned what they confiscated: “They picked up everything – goods, equipment and vehicles,” which they say have been “taken” as evidence.
Luis insists to this newspaper that the “priority objective” of Cuspinera -“an American citizen since his twenties” – is to obtain international help: “He has not found another way out and fears for his life.” Luis also states that, despite the fact that the 48-year-old businessman suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure,” he still has the idea of starting the hunger strike on June 1 that he announced in his letter.”
What may await him can be serious: “At the beginning of a hunger strike, the prison first will take away his rights as a prisoner, and he won’t be able to make phone calls. They will take away his visits, which he says he has received every 21 days since February, and put him in an unventilated isolation cell without light or a bathroom, as punishment, to make him give up.” However, he is willing to go all the way: “He has decided to go on a hunger and thirst strike, which is even worse.”
*Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises [mipyme in Spanish]
Translated by Regina Anavy
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