August 10, 2025 — Exiled Cuban Air Force General Rafael del Pino, the highest-ranking officer in the Cuban movement of Military Conscientious Objectors (MOC) he co-founded, has publicly denounced the recent leak of GAESA bank accounts—worth more than $18 billion—as confirmation of the existence of a “mafia state” in Cuba controlled by a kleptocratic elite linked to the Castro family.
According to Del Pino, GAESA operates as a private corporation registered in tax havens and controlled by a kleptocratic elite that has appropriated the country’s strategic resources and uses the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) and the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) as private armies to repress the people. The “government” headed by Miguel Díaz-Canel is, in his words, a mere puppet of this oligarchy.
The general calls on FAR officers and enlisted men to exercise their “sacred right to insubordination” to neutralize the repression of protests and to create a broad civil-military coalition that will lead to a genuine democratic transition, with free elections, the rule of law, and full economic freedoms.
Del Pino warns of the possibility that these leaks are part of a deliberate “fake change” plan devised by factions within the leadership to perpetuate themselves in power under a facade of openness, mimicking the strategy implemented in Russia by Vladimir Putin. He points out that the Helms-Burton Act clearly establishes the universal democratic norms that the United States aspires to see on the island and will not recognize as valid any transition controlled in one way or another by the same oppressors who have run the regime.
“The oligarchy represents less than 1% of the population that suffers. Let’s turn our weapons against them and support the people so they can regain their stolen freedoms and wealth,” Del Pino concludes.
