In the middle of this month, the name Roberto Carlos Chamizo González reached the international press after his role as an intermediary in an attempted contact between Havana and Washington became known. Chamizo is said to have traveled to the United States carrying a letter attributed to Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as El Cangrejo, addressed to President Donald Trump. Most striking is that this effort was carried out outside traditional diplomatic channels.
Chamizo was intercepted and returned to the island, as he did not hold any recognized diplomatic status. Removed from any known institutional or diplomatic role, his profile, marked by a lavish lifestyle and presence at exclusive events, stands in sharp contrast to the sensitive nature of such a mission.
CubaNet investigations suggest that his public profile may be nothing more than a carefully constructed façade. Chamizo is not an independent businessman in the traditional sense, but rather an official linked to Cuban intelligence operating under business cover. His lifestyle, business ventures, and public image appear to form part of a strategy designed to allow him to move easily in international environments and gain access to influential circles.
According to testimony from six sources close to the businessman obtained by this outlet, the 37-year-old was trained at the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) and participated in international operations related to financial monitoring and engagement with investors and influential figures. Several of the businesses he currently manages are linked to GAESA, the economic arm of the Cuban military.
Chamizo, the Cadet Embedded in the “Team Party”
Today, according to his own social media, Roberto Carlos Chamizo publicly manages three businesses in Cuba: the El Patrón estate, a tourist farm; Havana Prestige, a luxury transportation service; and a recently opened restaurant in Old Havana.
On social media, he posts photos on yachts, private jets, and luxury cars while visiting destinations such as Greece, Dubai, Moscow, London, and Miami. On those same platforms, he conceals his full name and presents himself simply as Carlos Milán. What he does not disclose on Instagram is that, since childhood, he has been part of circles close to the Cuban leadership.
According to sources consulted by CubaNet under condition of anonymity, all from his personal and family environment, Roberto Carlos is the nephew of MININT Colonel Carlos Miguel Chamizo Trujillo, who served on the security detail of Commander Ramiro Valdés Menéndez until the late 1970s.
Following family tradition, Chamizo studied at the “Hermanos Martínez Tamayo” Vocational Pre-University Institute, a MININT academy, between 2003 and 2006. Through this path, he enrolled at the University of Havana with an obligation to return to military service after graduation. In 2011, he graduated with a degree in Accounting and Finance, the rank of lieutenant, and an assignment to the Special Operations Department of MININT.
A few months later, the young man was placed in the International Operations Department of the Central Bank of Cuba, BCC, formerly the National Bank of Cuba, according to two institutional sources who confirmed this to CubaNet. There, he was trained to monitor financial activity in Europe and Asia involving foreign investors and companies operating in Cuba, as well as the movements of personnel associated with Havana International Bank in London and beyond.
“Monitoring was the primary task, but [Chamizo] also had to establish relationships, even intimate ones if necessary, with as many influential people as possible. Top-level politicians, artists, athletes, anyone connected to substantial wealth,” said a BCC official now based in Panama, who encountered Chamizo in London, Switzerland, Dubai, and Madrid, among other cities.
Another BCC source, this one based in Havana, agrees: “We went to events, parties, and led active social lives as part of our work, which also aimed to attract people with capital to Cuba. Chamizo was the youngest in the monitoring group, which, both within the BCC’s International Operations Department and MININT, was called ‘Team Party,’ because we always had to be present at those types of events. He came in as a recent graduate, intelligent, charismatic, good-looking, and friendly. In short, the perfect façade for what we were doing. But he was not the only one. He was one of our decoys, as we called them. Since he was the newest, we called him ‘The Kid,’ and that is how he appeared in reports.” The same source also states that the current El Patrón estate was financed with money obtained from those activities.
The funding came from “the same contacts he made during those trips and under that façade,” said another source who also worked at the Cuban Embassy in London during the same period. “He returned to Cuba once his assignment ended. In 2016, his mission was extended due to a lack of personnel, and in 2018, he returned,” the source concluded.
El Patrón Expands Following Evictions Driven by GAESA
In 2018, the El Patrón estate, located at Camino San Gabriel 200 in East Havana, had neither its current size nor did it resemble the idyllic destination promoted by Cuban tourism agencies. Its original core consisted of a small pig farm and subsistence plots belonging to the Ministry of the Interior, managed by reserve Colonel Miguel Chamizo Trujillo, Roberto Carlos’s uncle, who has formally retired but continues working there as an advisor. However, most of the land currently occupied by El Patrón belonged to the Bacuranao Agricultural Enterprise, a state entity dedicated to farming and livestock production, as well as to farmers who worked it under usufruct agreements.
What had been land for livestock and crop cultivation was suddenly transformed into a tourist estate. Despite not fully utilizing the land he already controlled, Chamizo continued to receive additional hectares through “orders from above.” El Patrón expanded rapidly, absorbing neighboring lands and removing anyone who opposed it.
This growth was the result of a campaign of evictions, with and without compensation, and abuses of such magnitude and violence that most victims chose not to report them, aware that the so-called “agroecological farm” was not a private venture but another business tied to the Castro network.
One affected family directly links Chamizo to Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, El Cangrejo, the same figure who allegedly sent the letter to Trump through Chamizo. “They are inseparable,” said a source who witnessed pressure exerted on local producers.
A farming family directly affected by Chamizo and his circle contacted CubaNet anonymously for fear of reprisals, describing a sustained process of institutional harassment that began in 2023 and has escalated over time.
According to their testimony, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture initiated a series of pressures and sanctions that ultimately resulted in the loss of their usufruct land. CubaNet independently reviewed the official resolution terminating that usufruct and confirmed the existence of the process.
“They behave like a mafia,” said a member of the family, who also stated that El Patrón has grown with backing from the highest levels, despite the land not being used to produce food for the population.
Another affected family shared a similar account earlier this year. They explained that the eviction was accompanied by a heavy deployment of state forces, whose members told them they needed to “sanitize the area.” For these farmers, the brutality lies not only in such actions but in the total impunity with which they were carried out. All legal claims filed in court were dismissed without the possibility of appeal, leaving them with no legal means to recover their land.
A previous CubaNet report had already documented indications of a close relationship between El Patrón and the military conglomerate GAESA. The complex, presented as a private business, was unusually included in the excursion catalog of Gaviota Tours, a key company within the group, despite the agency’s traditional policy of promoting only state-controlled facilities.
Internal sources indicated that the promotion of El Patrón did not respond to commercial criteria but to “high-level” decisions. Those same actors are likely behind both the arbitrary expansion of the estate and the threats directed at those who dared to protest.
The Chamizo and Imperatori Families, Two Families Close to Power
Colonel Miguel Chamizo Trujillo, Roberto Carlos’s uncle, served for more than a decade on Ramiro Valdés Menéndez’s security detail. Between 1981 and 1983, after a car accident prevented him from continuing in that role, he was appointed head of security at Cuba’s diplomatic mission in London, and later personal secretary to Julio Antonio Imperatori Grave de Peralta during his tenure in London and later as Cuba’s ambassador to Kuwait in the 1980s.
Julio Antonio Imperatori had worked at the National Bank of Cuba since the 1960s and later served as Vice President of International Operations. Both family names, Chamizo and Imperatori, have long been closely linked to the regime’s financial structures through the International Operations Department of the Central Bank of Cuba and the Special Operations Department of MININT.
The two families share another similarity. Some of the luxury apartments rented by Roberto Carlos Chamizo, a business he does not promote on Instagram, previously belonged to or were occupied by members of the Imperatori family.
For example, 423 19th Street was owned until 2018 by Julio César Imperatori García, who, in a similar assignment, overlapped with Chamizo in London between 2014 and 2015.
The property at 966 San Lázaro Street in Central Havana was occupied for at least two years by Ana Beatriz Imperatori, who graduated in Economics in 2017 from the University of Havana and currently works in Germany as an official of the Central Bank of Cuba after completing several master’s and doctoral programs in European universities.
Like the Imperatori family, which owns several tourism-related businesses, including the restaurants O’Reilly 304 and El Del Frente, Roberto Carlos Chamizo also manages a restaurant in Old Havana.
This is Mía Culpa Havana, located within the Iberostar Grand Packard Hotel, owned by GAESA, with Spanish chef Ramsés González Méndez.
González Méndez not only created the menus for El Patrón but also appears as the legal representative of RCCH Investment SL, the company Chamizo founded in December 2025, according to Spain’s official business registry.
Although Roberto Carlos Chamizo González surprised many by shedding his image as a jovial businessman to become El Cangrejo’s messenger, he did not emerge out of nowhere, nor did his network of businesses linked to GAESA. According to consulted sources, Chamizo has always operated within the system, ready to serve in whatever role is assigned to him, whether as a businessman, a front man, or a courier.
