There is no doubt that this service station dispenses fuel from the US, despite Washington’s ban on providing gasoline to the State
14ymedio, Havana, Darío Hernández, September 14, 2026 / It has been more than five months since the second and final tanker of the year arrived in Cuba with fuel, and setting aside the factory closures, the constant blackouts, and the lack of public transportation, there is one sector that has never slowed its pace: for the trucks, cars, and motorcycles carrying police and members of the Army, there is no fuel shortage.
Where does the Government get the fuel that has kept its repressive apparatus running for months? In Havana, one of the supply points is located exactly one block from Villa Marista, at the intersection of San Miguel and D’Strampes streets, where a Cupet gas station fuels all types of vehicles belonging to the Ministry of the Interior. The name of the place could not be more ironic: El Eficiente [The Efficient One].
A 14ymedio reporter was able to confirm that the site supplies vehicles belonging to the state-run Sepsa (Empresa de Servicios Especializados de Protección, S.A.), responsible for security operations for that agency and other strategic sectors, as well as the trucks that regularly transport the special brigades known as the black berets, in addition to the Suzuki motorcycles used on patrol by State Security agents.
This newspaper learned of the activity from a neighbor in the area, who reported having noticed this kind of activity since at least August. “Every day, hundreds of vehicles of all kinds pass through there – buses for personnel transport (to and from the Ministry of the Interior, located in Plaza José Martí), dump trucks, cars with M, B, and P plates, hundreds of Suzuki motorcycles with their respective thugs…”, he said.
“I wonder how it’s possible for them to mock the sanctions on the regime like this. The repressive apparatus is running at 100%, and that has been the case for more than 66 years”, lamented the whistleblower, who says he suspects that the gasoline imported by some small private businesses (mipymes) is financed by the regime for its own use. “No one here generates enough wealth to buy an iso-tank container of fuel that costs thousands of dollars.”
Last March, the consulting firm Auge warned of the difficulties that a private Cuban company – the only kind authorized to buy gasoline in the US – could face in carrying out this operation. According to its calculations, the investment needed to acquire and import a full 25,000-liter iso-tank runs to around 50,000 dollars, a very high figure for the vast majority of local businesses.
Gasoline imports from the US, however, keep growing. So far this year, and since the Trump Administration authorized these transactions, Cuban companies have purchased petroleum-derived products worth 156.8 million dollars, more than 61 million of which came in July alone, the most recent month for which data is available. In addition, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero told the National Assembly that same month that the first foreign investment business for the importation, distribution, and marketing of fuel had already been authorized – a description that matched that of A Granel, the private company with offices in La Lisa and a Cupet warehouse on Avenida del Puerto that 14ymedio visited that month.
The official added that more than a hundred private businesses had already received permission to sell fuel wholesale. Although US regulations are clear in barring the regime from receiving gasoline, this newspaper has previously documented that many state vehicles fill up at service stations whose fuel was imported by private individuals.
Although the public is aware that the State is stocking up using these shipments, the resentment stems above all from what that fuel is used for. “My neighborhood has been without water for days now, like so many others, and they can’t send a water truck because there’s no fuel – the neighbor near the service station points out -. What outrageous irony! There’s gasoline to beat people with, but none for drinking or bathing.”
Translated by GH
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