Five distributors, chosen by Fidel Castro himself, monopolize the world market. They organize auctions with the promise of sending the money to the dilapidated Public Health system of the Island.
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 4 August 2024 — Escorted by two British red coats and surrounded by millionaires from all over the world, the managers of the Hunters & Frankau house had some news: last month during the cigar auction to promote the Trinidad Cabildos, whose organization had been invited by the Havana regime, 5,150,000 euros were collected in a single night. The president of the cigar company, Jemma Freeman, promised to send the money – most would be missing – to the dilapidated “Cuban Public Health system.”
Hunters & Frankau, the exclusive distributor of the Cuban monopoly Habanos S.A. in the United Kingdom, thus closed the first face-to-face edition of World Cigar Days. Similar – but much more luxurious – at the Cigar Festival of Cuba, the event was hosted by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Between Rafael’s Renaissance canvases and a humidor signed by Fidel Castro in 2002 – which was not for sale – the aficionados bid on limited editions and numbered boxes of Trinidad, a brand that turns 55 and is “loaded with symbolism” for being the favorite of the Cuban dictator.
It is enough to explore the official website of Habanos S.A. to verify that premium cigars continue to give great benefits to the regime. The news section attests to the luxurious network of Cuban cigars internationally and its distribution partners. From Russia to Beirut, from Madrid to Geneva, from Havana to Qatar, the “friends of the cigar” network has been consolidating its power with millionaire sales for decades. A Cuban tobacco planter would need a lot of mental effort to process that a single cigar made by his hands is auctioned for thousands of dollars in the great capitals of the world.
Habanos S.A. would be nothing without Spain. The ethnologist Fernando Ortiz wrote that whoever rules in Cuba rules over the cigar. That phrase is illustrated like no one else by Luis Sánchez-Harguindey, co-president of the monopoly since 2012, although on his social networks he describes himself simply as a president and an expert in “international business management.”
Premium cigars continue to give great benefits to the regime
It is Sánchez-Harguindey who calls the shots for Habanos S.A. and who presents his results annually during the Cuban Cigar Festival. His counterpart in Spain is Fernando Domínguez, president of Tabacalera S.A., which distributes Cuban cigars to every tobacconist in Spain. Sánchez-Harguindey and Domínguez’s dream was to take the American market by storm, but Cuban cigars were banished. In 2015, in the midst of the thaw in diplomatic relations between Havana and Washington, both businessmen salivated over a commercial opportunity that never came.
Habanos S.A. soon recovered from its disappointment and strengthened its sales in Europe. The key man of that expansion was Heinrich Villiger, director of 5th Avenue Products Trading, who is in charge of the distribution of Cuban cigars in Germany, Austria and Poland.
At the age of 94, Villiger, a member of one of the most prominent families in Switzerland – his brother Kaspar was president of the country – opened factories in Nicaragua and Brazil this year. He boasts of directing his “empire” – he employs 1,700 people – based on letters that come out of his typewriter. As a young man, Villiger traveled to the United States and then to Cuba, Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico to gain experience. When the Cuban cigar business collapsed in the United States after the Missile Crisis – before which, supposedly, President J.F. Kennedy bought all the cigars available – Villiger took the opportunity and approached Castro.
One of the least known sales niches of Habanos S.A. in Europe is Andorra. One company – Maori Tabacs – takes advantage of the tax exemptions offered by that country, advertises as a paradise for “luxury hunters.” José María Cases and his son Ricardo, who preside over Maori, know it well. Cases is famous for initiating the practice of wrapping cigars in cellophane so that, in the absence of tropical humidity, they survive the European climate.
Using that “trick,” José L. Piedra began to import cigars and developed his business. In 1975 he opened an office in Cuba and, after the fall of the Soviet Union, he began to help Castro by sending him products that the country requested, not necessarily linked to the world of cigars. He befriended Villiger and Nicholas Freeman – father of the current manager of Hunters & Frankau – who were already close to the dictator.
Millionaire and decadent, Cases has a collection of 400 humidors and imports more than 200 cigar bands from the Island. In addition, he is a cigar cop: Maori Tabacs’ monopoly prevents counterfeit cigars from entering Andorra and France, where he is also in charge of the market.
On the American continent, Max Gutmann has been selling Cuban cigars in Mexico for almost 40 years
Castro met the Lebanese Mohamed Zeidan, president of Phoenicia Trading and partner of Habanos S.A., in the Middle East, Africa and part of Europe, in 1999 during a Havana Festival. Castro “became fond of him” after the auction of a signed humidor for which he gave $230,000. Zeidan, whom he nicknamed “the Phoenician,” re-auctioned the humidor on the spot to win over the dictator even more: the money was used to pay the lawyers who represented Havana in the dispute over the custody of Elián González.
On the American continent, Max Gutmann, president of Importer and Exporter of Cigars and Tobacco, has been selling Cuban cigars in Mexico for almost 40 years. Of Austrian origin, Gutmann bought the first humidor signed by Castro and opened the first Casa del Habano in Cancún in 1990.
When a group of businessmen with no connection to Cuba opened a store of the same name in Paris, Gutmann received a call from the president of Cubatabaco – the name of the Cuban state monopoly at the time. They asked him to give the Cuban regime the “Casa del Habano” brand completely free of charge. In return, they would give him the exclusive rights to distribute cigars in Mexico.
Gutmann accepted. Castro admitted him into his circle, and he managed to be one of the 200 guests at the first cigar gala dinner – there were still no festivals – in 1995. He returned to his country with a humidor signed by the caudillo and the writer Gabriel García Márquez for which he paid $5,000. Gutmann believes that his company also captures the U.S. market, which cannot negotiate with Habanos S.A. That Americans and Canadians travel to Mexico to buy Cuban cigars, he says, was the idea of Castro, who allied with Gutmann “knowing that they would surely end up there,” he said in an interview.
Domínguez, Villiger, Freeman, Cases and Gutmann, considered the pentarchy of the Cuban cigar worldwide, were summoned by Fidel Castro during the Special Period to stir up their clientele before the first Cigar Festival.
Called to the international cigar event par excellence, the millionaires who meet in Havana once a year – and also personalities such as Jeremy Irons, Paris Hilton and Tom Jones – also travel to the “twin” events that the five houses hold around the world, and which have been joined by other potential tycoons from Russia, the United Arab Emirates and – the client of the future – China.
Each dinner is more exclusive than the last, and more and more expensive and extravagant cigars are being sold. As an afterthought that, for any Cuban, is more than ironic, the millions collected are promised to Cuban Health. Without the slightest modesty, Habanos S.A. publishes the photos of each event.
At the end of the night, the “friends of the Cuban cigar” are photographed with the humble Cuban farmers, and they give a toast – cigar in hand and dressed in a tuxedo – for the dictator who made their businesses prosper.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
