14ymedio, Havana, 17 January 2024 — After the theft of some $19,000 from his office, Grand Master Mario Alberto Urquía, leader of the Cuban Freemasons, has entrenched himself against those demanding his resignation. Measures to reinforce his authority have been drastic: he dismissed senior Masonic officials who questioned him and issued an urgent “call to order.” As the crisis progresses, hopes decline that the money will appear, money on which a large part of the maintenance of the elderly at the Llansó National Masonic Asylum, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, depends.
The writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats, a 33rd degree Mason – the highest step in the order’s hierarchy – and independent journalist, has been present in each phase of the process and agreed to detail it for 14ymedio. “The Board of Trustees had a sum of 21,000 dollars, between euros and dollars,” recalls Santiesteban, who is also one of the twelve members of the Board of Trustees of Llansó Asylum, the entity in charge of making decisions about the administration.
“The Grand Master says that I suggested it to him. That is not the case. I have consulted with other members of the Board of Trustees who do not recall that I had asked him to keep the money in the Grand Lodge. But he was one of the most concerned because the money was over there.” The writer describes the precariousness of the fence that leads to the “little house” of the Asylum where the money was kept. “I was obsessed with the possibility that someone would try to steal the money and hurt the workers.”
According to Santiesteban, in September 2023 Urquía took the money to the headquarters of the Grand Lodge, on Carlos III Street, Centro Habana. “At the Board of Trustees we questioned whether having that amount outside the bank was a crime. He answered no. The treasurer of the Grand Lodge, who is a lawyer, did a whole dissertation to prove that it was not illegal,” he explains.
The arguments for keeping the sum in the Carlos III building were clear: unlike the Asylum, it was a protected place – Santiesteban confirms this – and it had a safe. In October, during the monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees, Santiesteban himself proposed making a calculation between the treasurer of the Asylum and that of the Grand Lodge. “There we found out that the money was not held by the Grand Treasurer, but rather that Urquía was personally guarding it.”
Urquía kept the sum in unacceptable conditions: “a small box,” belonging to his own family, “which he later put on a shelf without any type of security” and which was going to be unprotected during the Grand Master’s vacation.
In January, due to State delays in distribution, the usual supplies for the elderly in the Llansó Asylum did not arrive. “There is an alarm on the 9th, and at 11:00 am the director of the Asylum calls the Sovereign [José Ramón Viñas Alonso], who presides over the Board of Trustees. The Sovereign responds that he will immediately go to the Grand Lodge to look for 1,000 dollars to buy food in
