A new investigation by El Nuevo Herald has revealed the financial power of GAESA, the business conglomerate controlled by Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). El Nuevo Herald gained access to secret documents showing that as of March 2024, GAESA held current assets worth $18 billion, $14.5 billion of which was kept in bank accounts belonging to financial institutions within the group. This excludes profits from CIMEX, one of its most profitable subsidiaries.

According to these leaked documents, GAESA’s cash reserves surpass those of countries like Costa Rica, Uruguay, or Panama. “This is the first time we have detailed financial data about GAESA that allows us to assess its monopolistic and financial power in figures,” said Cuban economist Pavel Vidal.

The numbers suggest the military structure has assumed a de facto role akin to a central bank, in a country where most citizens live on less than $20 a month.

The Florida-based media outlet did not disclose how it obtained the documents, nor did it share them publicly—only offering a summary and screenshots of the information they contain.

To illustrate the group’s economic clout, Vidal explained that GAESA’s profit margins may account for around 40% of Cuba’s GDP in 2023. “GAESA’s weight in the Cuban GDP exceeds that of state-controlled oil companies in Latin America, like Ecopetrol in Colombia, Petrobras in Brazil, or PDVSA in Venezuela,” the economist told elTOQUE.

According to the internal files, the military group generated over $2.1 billion in net profits in just the first quarter of 2024. The CIMEX corporation—which manages banking, retail, and commercial operations—reported $3.4 billion in revenue and $1.2 billion in profits through March of last year.

Founded in the 1990s to circumvent the US embargo, GAESA has grown into the island’s dominant economic player. Through foreign-registered companies and operations that include banks, cargo ships, hotels, foreign currency stores, and control over remittances, the military conglomerate has achieved a level of autonomy comparable to that of a sovereign state.

The contrast between the conglomerate’s resources and the collapse of the rest of Cuba’s economy could not be starker. While most Cubans struggle to survive on meager incomes and the country’s basic infrastructure crumbles, GAESA maintains billion-dollar hard currency deposits and continues to build luxury hotels.

Vidal said GAESA functions as a kind of shadow central bank, with its own financial network independent of Cuba’s Central Bank, its operations mostly offshore, and its accounting books closed even to official institutions.

The lack of transparency and institutional oversight became even more evident when Gladys Bejerano, then Comptroller General of the Republic, stated in 2023 that her office had no authority to audit GAESA. She was dismissed shortly thereafter without explanation. Oversight of GAESA’s operations rests with the mysterious Department V of the FAR, mentioned in the leaked documents.

The 22 spreadsheets accessed by El Nuevo Herald—including balance sheets, profit reports, and internal documents dated between March and August 2024—offer an unprecedented level of detail. The data also shows that not even the military empire has escaped the country’s economic deterioration. Between March and August 2024, the conglomerate’s liquid assets fell from $18 billion to $14 billion, and bank deposits dropped from $14.5 billion to $9.3 billion. A loss of over $5 billion in just five months, which analysts attribute to declining tourism and the unviability of maintaining hotels without sufficient demand.

According to Vidal, GAESA’s “excessive power and lack of transparency allow political and military elites to use it as a mechanism to extract wealth from society, facilitating corruption with effects that do not favor economic development,” he told elTOQUE.

“On the other hand, the data confirms the limited effectiveness of US sanctions and the asymmetry of their impact. The sanctions disproportionately affect families and the private sector, while GAESA continues to generate substantial revenue and maintain large reserves in US dollars,” Vidal added.

The conglomerate consolidated its power under the leadership of Raul Castro, who took over the country in 2006. Castro appointed his former son-in-law, General Luis Alberto Rodríguez Lopez-Calleja, to head the group. After his death in 2022, the structure came under the leadership of Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, a brigadier general with no public ties to the Castro family but closely linked to the military apparatus.

The leaked financial statements also confirm that GAESA operates with a dual accounting system, separately recording transactions in Cuban pesos and US dollars. This practice aligns with the country’s partial dollarization, a policy that enables the conglomerate to earn income in both currencies through fuel sales, foreign currency stores, and remittance management. The dollar figures reported are not currency conversions—they are actual amounts in hard currency.

While President Miguel Díaz-Canel urges Cubans to “resist” amid blackouts, inflation, and food shortages, the documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald show that the Cuban military not only has the means to ease the crisis—it has chosen to withhold them. And it appears to do so without answering to anyone.

This article was translated into English from the original in Spanish.