Cuba Has Managed To Evade U.S. Sanctions and Siphon Millions of Dollars In Remittances to its Military

The Trump administration imposed a series of sanctions on the Cuban military in 2020, banning it from handling the remittances from the U.S., a practice that has continued in the Biden era and seeks to prevent the Communist government from using profits to finance itself.

However, the Díaz-Canel government has been able to snake through the obstacles and bringing in millions of dollars originating from Miami to its armed forces, according to a new investigation.

To avoid the sanctions, the Cuban government pretended to create a new company independent of the military to handle the millions of dollars sent yearly to the island through Western Union and Miami-based money-transfer agencies, according to The Miami Herald.

But in reality, Orbit S.A., the company that currently handles remittances from the United States, was created by the Cuban government and controlled by the country's military. The company was created after Fincimex, a military-run institution and Orbit's predecessor, faced sanctions from the Trump administration.

Much of the island's economy, from gas stations to real estate and tourism, is powered by remittances sent by Cuban Americans in the U.S. to help their families snack at home. The Trump sanctions prevented the remittances from reaching Havana for two years, at least formally, until Cuba reassured Washington in 2022 that it had created the new remittances company, Orbit, with no ties to the armed forces.

Orbit was almost identical to Fincimex and even located on the same street in Havana Miramar neighborhood. It was staffed with former Fincimex employees but the government claimed it was free of ties to the previous company and the military, according to The Miami Herald.

Havana and Washington eventually reached a deal in 2022, allowing Orbit to handle remittances with the understanding that the Cuban company had no ties to the military. The agreement was authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department, as it is customary due to a decades-old U.S. trade embargo.

Western Union also resumed money transfers to the island in March 2023. The company told The Miami Herald at the time that Orbit would act "as Western Union's bank account payout processor in Cuba."

Orbit has been managed and closely monitored by Cimex, another company under the Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A., a conglomerate that handles remittances on the island.

Until the beginning of this year, Orbit was secretly run by Yamil Hernandez Gonzalez, Fincimex's general manager, using other people as fronts, the Herald said quoting a source. At least one of Orbit's former directors also came from another Cimex-run company, ECUSE.

Similarly, Brig. Gen. Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, the executive president of GAESA, named Diana Rosa Rodriguez Perez as Orbit's president, who was also a top executive of GAESA, and likely continues to have connections with the government, leaving more questions unanswered about a possible U.S. retaliation ahead of the new Trump administration.