The regime warns of a crime that is, in reality, the entry point into the island for almost all money transfers from abroad.
14ymedio, Madrid, 22 November 2025 — A total of 13 people, including four private business owners, were arrested last October and are currently under precautionary measures for what the Cuban regime describes as “remittance theft”. Razones de Cuba reported on this on Thursday, in an article that aims to raise awareness about a crime that is, in reality, the scheme used to bring almost all money transfers from abroad into the island.
“Large cash flows that previously entered the country are now being held abroad, in the hands of a controversial figure: the financier,” whose role, according to the pro-government media outlet, is to “capture money from remittances sent from abroad, mainly from the United States.” Part of the income he obtains, the article continues, is used “to purchase imports that require non-state forms of management to carry out their commercial operations in Cuba.”
In turn, private businesses deliver the equivalent amount within the country, “based on the cash acquired from their collections,” and the “financier” charges a percentage of the profits.
This mode of operation, says Razones de Cuba, is “results from the intensification of the blockade against Cuba.” The text refers, without explaining it as such, to the suspension of Western Union (WU) money transfers earlier this year, following the addition of Orbit S.A. to the US List of Restricted Entities in Cuba. The company was created to take over the management of remittances from Fincimex, which was sanctioned in 2020 for its connection to the Cuban military, but which in reality also depended on this state-owned company, belonging to the Gaesa conglomerate – which is also on the US List of Restricted Entities in Cuba.
After the educational introduction, they present, as an example, the “criminal network” that led to the arrest of the 13 individuals.
The measure was related to the Donald Trump administration’s goal of eliminating the military’s role in sending money to Cuban families. Even before that, but intensified since then, the island’s citizens had already devised another way to receive remittances informally, so that, according to various studies, they took 95% of those financial transactions away from Gaesa.
Although it is a widespread modus operandi on the island, which Cubans prefer to other official channels, Razones de Cuba protests that it is “a lucrative business, where the Cuban people lose out the most”.
After the educational introduction, they present as an example the “criminal network” uncovered by the Ministry of the Interior, which led to the arrest of 13 individuals. The ringleader, identified by full name, is Humberto Julio Mora Caballero, a Cuban from Camagüey residing in Miami, from where he “directed” operations.
Humberto has set up a criminal network that has allowed him to establish a system for collecting remittances sent by relatives of Cubans living in the United States,” said Yisnel Rivero Crespo, head of the Economic Crimes Department at the Ministry of the Interior. Once the money has been received in the United States, he emphasises, Mora Caballero “mobilises his employees in Cuba to collect the proceeds from private businesses in various provinces of the country”.
According to this military official, it is a “broad, strong and diverse network with a high level of material resources” that “has moved more than 1 billion pesos and a quarter of a million dollars between February and September 2025 alone”.
However, they clarify that this is not the first time they have taken action against this “network”: “Last July, assets and cash associated with criminal activity were seized, but the leader’s continued presence in the United States allowed him to set up another scheme, very similar in its operation, against which action has been taken now in October.”
Similarly, they claim that they notified the US authorities “on more than one occasion” of the existence of this network, “without any concrete action being taken to neutralise it”. The “theft of remittances”, they warn, “is also illegal under US law. The continuous violations force the financier to use front men to mask tax evasion through third-party bank accounts.
The text also takes a jab at El Toque, which the regime blames for the devaluation of the peso, describing its actions – that is, providing daily data on the dollar exchange rate on the informal market – as “economic terrorism” in the service of the United States. Lamenting the scams that can occur due to the “involvement of criminal networks in the import process” because of the “lack of official backing for transactions”, they add: “Add to this the instability of the exchange market, where a pseudo-scientific exchange rate, manipulated from abroad, prevails.”
To resolve this “direct attack” on “sovereignty,” Razones de Cuba asserts that the government has a foolproof solution: “Macroeconomic stabilisation measures are underway, with an official exchange rate that reflects the reality in Cuba.”
Translated by GH
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