MADRID, Spain — In the midst of one of the worst humanitarian crises Cuba has ever faced, new leaks reveal that the Revolutionary Armed Forces, through the business conglomerate GAESA, have amassed a fortune exceeding $18 billion — an amount greater than the international reserves of countries like Uruguay, Costa Rica, or Panama.
The secret documents, obtained exclusively by the U.S. daily newspaper The Miami Herald, offer an unprecedented snapshot of the finances of the military empire that controls key sectors of the national economy — from tourism to banking, retail, and remittances — and reinforce what many economists, opposition figures, and citizens on the island have denounced for years: the existence of a “parallel government” with the power and resources to ease the social collapse, but lacking the political will to do so.
The Power Behind the Scene
Under the leadership of Raúl Castro, GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.) has established itself as the true economic engine of Cuba, controlling dozens of companies. Although its current public face is Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, the conglomerate remains closely tied to the elite of the Communist Party and the military power circles that have ruled the country for more than six decades.
The newly obtained documents — 22 internal spreadsheets dated March and August 2024 — detail balance sheets, income statements, inventories, and profit reports from 25 companies within the conglomerate, some of which had not previously been identified as part of GAESA. The information, meticulously organized and processed through a digital accounting system, allows for the first time a real evaluation of the conglomerate’s reach in the Cuban economy.
“This is the first time we have access to detailed financial data from GAESA to assess its monopolistic and financial power in actual figures,” Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, a professor at Javeriana University in Colombia, told the Herald. “The financial statements confirm GAESA’s enormous weight in the Cuban economy. They hold international dollar reserves, while the rest of the economy is falling apart.”
Hidden Revenues and Accounting Opacity
The figures are staggering: in just the first quarter of 2024, GAESA generated $2.1 billion in net profits. Cimex, its main company—responsible for retail, banking, and international trade—contributed half of that amount. But even excluding Cimex, the conglomerate held $18 billion in current assets, of which $14.5 billion was deposited in its own bank accounts or financial institutions.
The issue, according to economists, lies not only in the concentration of wealth in military hands, but also in the complete lack of transparency in its management. “GAESA is not accountable and answers to no one,” emphasizes Vidal. He recalls that when he worked at the Central Bank of Cuba, he had no access to the financial statements of institutions like the International Financial Bank, which is also under GAESA’s control.
In fact, Comptroller General Gladys Bejerano was removed from her position after publicly stating that she could not audit GAESA because it was not under her jurisdiction.
Failed Tourism and Billion-Dollar Losses
Paradoxically, while the regime claims that a lack of foreign currency prevents the maintenance of power plants, the purchase of medicines, or the import of basic food supplies, the spreadsheets reveal that the money does exist—it is simply misallocated. The tourism company Gaviota, for instance, lost $5.8 billion between March and August 2024 after investing in new hotels that remain empty due to the collapse of tourism.
In March, Gaviota held $8.5 billion; by August, its balance had dropped to just $2.7 billion. Part of those funds was deposited in RAFIN S.A., another financial institution owned by the military. It’s unknown whether the money was transferred abroad or used for other purposes, but its disappearance has not been explained.
The losses weren’t limited to Gaviota. According to an internal presentation, Cimex also reported a 30% drop in projected profits and a 63% decline in its wholesale dollar trade in just three months.
A Parallel System to the State
For experts, the most alarming aspect is not just the accumulation of wealth, but the model that sustains it. GAESA does not pay taxes on its dollar sales or on its profits. In fact, what little it does owe to the state budget — 920 million pesos — amounts to less than 1% of its declared income during that period. At the same time, it received 9.2 billion pesos from the treasury as “state investment.”
This capital flow remains under the exclusive control of the Armed Forces, via a little-known fiscal entity, the Office of Tax Administration of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (OATFAR), whose existence was revealed in the documents and about which no public information exists.
“These records confirm that approximately 40% of the economy operates under different rules than the rest — with very little transparency, no oversight from civilian institutions, and a high degree of independence from the agencies responsible for managing the economy,” Vidal warned after reviewing the financial statements.
40% of Cuba’s GDP?
Based on 2023 data, Vidal estimated that GAESA’s profit margins on sales were equivalent to around 40% of Cuba’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). “There’s no precedent for this,” he said. “GAESA’s share of Cuba’s GDP surpasses that of state oil companies in Latin America, such as Ecopetrol in Colombia, Petrobras in Brazil, or even PDVSA in Venezuela. ”Experts warn about the risks posed by such a high concentration of economic power in the hands of a closed military elite with no accountability.
Meanwhile, the regime continues to blame the U.S. embargo for the crisis the island is going through. But the documents obtained by the Herald show that the money exists — and that Cuba’s misery is not due to a lack of resources, but to a power structure that manages those resources according to its own interests.
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