14ymedio, Havana, 20 March 2024 — “We are surrounded by many countries,” the head of the General Customs of the Republic, Nelson Cordovés, explained this Tuesday on Cuban Television. His headaches, he said, can be attributed to two groups of travelers: “those who enter” the country with drugs, weapons and illegal cargo, and “those who leave” with more currency and cigars than allowed, and medicines that are lacking on the Island.
Cordovés attended State TV’s Round Table program with a portfolio of photographs, data and concrete examples. So far this year, 135 cases have been detected of travelers trying to take more money than the law establishes – the official equivalent of $5,000 in any foreign currency – and in 2022, this was attempted by 233 travelers.
According to the head of Customs, so far in 2024, 3.2 million pesos and 91,000 dollars have been confiscated; in 2022, 5,033 billion pesos and 420,000 dollars. The “issue of money,” Cordovés observed, has become a “trend.”
Cordovés did not explain why he omitted the figures of 2023, the year in which Mirtza Ocaña, a Cuban recently arrested in Tampa, Florida, managed to get at least 100,000 dollars off the Island. Last February, Ocaña – of whom Cordovés did not say a word – was accused by the Federal District Prosecutor’s Office of transferring that amount of money and could face up to five years in prison if she is arrested.
Cordovés did not explain why he omitted the 2023 figures, the year in which Mirtza Ocaña, a Cuban recently arrested in Tampa, United States, managed to get at least 100,000 dollars off the Island
The irregularity was not detected during any of the 45 trips that the woman made to Cuba, and despite the surveillance of which Havana boasts, it was the U.S. authorities who, after making a search, found several thousand dollars in her clothes.
As for the “insured” medicines – those that are lacking – that people try to take out, Cordovés did not give details or the names of the drugs. Ciga
