The Spanish newspaper ‘El Confidencial’ claims that Paolo Titolo managed the investments of Portuguese magnate Américo Ferreira Amorim in Spain for years.
14ymedio, Madrid, 25 September 2026 / Paolo Titolo, Mariela Castro’s second husband, owns up to three tourist apartments in Barcelona, according to a report published Friday by El Confidencial. Citing sources in the Property Registry and people close to Raúl Castro’s son-in-law, the Spanish online newspaper indicates that he purchased them in 2015, 2017, and 2019, respectively.
The first property is a 155-square-meter [approximately 1,700-square-feet] apartment near Plaza de España and the Las Arenas shopping center, which, as El Confidencial points out, “is beyond the reach of the average citizen.” According to real estate websites, the price per square meter in this area is over €6,600, leading the Spanish online newspaper to estimate its market value at between €950,000 and €1,250,000.
On June 9, 2017, the publication details, he acquired his second property, an apartment in La Barceloneta, the old fishing neighborhood by the sea. Measuring 32 square meters, its value is estimated between €160,000 and €210,000, according to El Confidencial, “although the price could be higher, as the building has an elevator.” These types of apartments, the newspaper says, “were highly sought after in past decades by investors who, after renovating them, converted them into studio lofts and rented them out to tourists.”
Titolo, an Italian national and photojournalist by profession, “swarmed around Spain” for years, especially Barcelona, to look for investments for Cuba.
The third apartment Titolo acquired in 2019, is on Viladomat Street in the Eixample district, “in a building associated with tourist apartments, well-built and with soundproof windows,” El Confidencial reports. Also 32 square meters, the price of this property ranges between 180,000 and 220,000 euros.
El Confidencial reports that Titolo, an Italian national and photojournalist by profession, “swarmed around Spain” for years, especially Barcelona, seeking investments for Cuba. His main occupation, the online publication states, was “managing the businesses” of Américo Ferreira Amorim, who died in 2017. Amorim was once the richest man in Portugal and became friends with Fidel Castro and his brother in the 1960s. Titolo told El Confidencial that a businessman he knows personsally “decided how to invest” the money from the Portuguese magnate, owner of the Amorim conglomerate that sent “six or seven million euros.” At the same time, Raúl Castro’s son-in-law “was involved in other business dealings.”
In Barcelona, the publication reports, “he knocked on many doors, met with businesspeople, and asked to be introduced to elite economic circles to facilitate business deals in Havana. He became a simple commission agent, charging exorbitant fees for his political connections; after all, he was the boss’s son-in-law.” One of the deals he attempted, according to El Confidencial, was to obtain the Nissan dealership in Cuba, which “failed to go through” because “the Japanese wouldn’t budge” and continued to leave it in the hands of a Mexican billionaire.
The online newspaper highlights the paradox that Titolo realized all these operations while the mayor of Barcelona was the leftist Ada Colau, who declared open war on tourist apartments during her administration. Her first deputy mayor, moreover, was Gerardo Pisarello, who to this day maintains close ties with the Communist Party of Cuba. He was, in fact, one of the passengers last March on the so-called Convoy Nuestra América organized by far-left organizations in solidarity with the regime and against the US embargo.
According to reports in the independent press, the Castro Titolo family and their children are among the wealthiest on the island. CubaNet, for example, revealed that Lisa Titolo Castro, owner of the Gaia Mercado local development project, is linked to a network of businesses built on the privileges of her surname, including fuel imports. In addition to Gaia, Lisa manages two agricultural farms, a meat processing company, and two micro-enterprises that supply construction materials, CubaNet asserted .
Residents of Central Havana, for their part, have pointed to Mariela Castro as a shadowy figure in businesses that were once privileged, such as the Tribe Caribe hotel, founded by Andrés Levín, and El Biky, but her name does not appear in them officially.
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