The Cuban regime announced this Thursday, March 7, that the former Minister of Economy and Vice Prime Minister of Cuba, Alejandro Gil, was being investigated for corruptionHowever, as is usual in these cases, the official press did not give many details about the case.
Now, the independent media CubaNet affirms that this investigation related to Mirtza Ocaña Lara, the Cuban-American who was detained in Tampa at the beginning of February for entering with more than 100,000 dollars (USD) in cash from the Island without declaring.
Sources consulted by the aforementioned media affirm that the woman, a resident of Tampa, is collaborating with the United States prosecutor’s office and has mentioned the name of Gil Fernández on multiple occasions.
Ocaña case
The woman was arrested on February 5, when authorities at Tampa Airport discovered several bundles of bills hidden in the Cuban-American woman’s luggage. This discovery was made despite the fact that the woman assured that she did not carry more than 10,000 USD in cash.
In total, US Customs found more than 100,000 USD distributed in several bundles, which were hidden among the woman’s clothes. When questioned, the Cuban-American acknowledged that this was not the first time she had done so, and that she had traveled between Cuba and Tampa on at least 45 occasions during a single year.
Ocaña, 38 years old, He declared that he received a payment of between 1,500 and 2,000 USD for each trip made to the Island in exchange for secretly transporting money.. Following his initial arrest, he appeared before Judge Sean P. Flynn, where he obtained his release under home surveillance. Since then he has been collaborating with authorities to try to reduce his sentence.
Possible involvement with Gil
The fact that the woman was able to travel so many times between these two countries, despite all the security and restrictions that Cuban authorities are known for, raised suspicions.
Likewise, the fact that the large amounts of money that the woman admitted having brought into the United States were not discovered by Cuban Customs and its technology suggests that the citizen was receiving the support of a high-ranking official to carry out this activity.
At the moment, the US Department of Justice (DOE) has not officially revealed more details, but it is known that both nations carry out continuous exchanges of information as part of law enforcement dialogues.
In that sense, it is not difficult to believe that the Castro regime, in an attempt to protect more officials, decided to sacrifice Gil as a scapegoat, after all, he had already been dismissed a few weeks before.
If so, this would have a lot of resemblance to the case of Fidel Castro and General Arnaldo Ochoa, who was arrested in the late 1980s for drug-related deals, something the late dictator claimed to be unaware of.
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