New America Media, News report, Louis E.V. Nevaer, Posted: Apr 09, 2008
Editor's Note: Dead Cubans in Cancun are causing Mexican authorities to
take note. Cuban-on-Cuban violence is rising as a power struggle emerges
between Cuban mafias. NAM contributor Louis E.V. Nevaer is the author of
NAFTA'S Second Decade: Assessing Opportunities in the Mexican and
Canadian Markets.
MERIDA, Mexico—Two months after Fidel Castro withdrew from public life
in July 2006, a power struggle emerged in the Havana-Cancun-Miami
triangle, where the underworlds of human trafficking and smuggling
intersect.
With Raul Castro as Cuba's leader, there is now an escalation of
violence as the "Miami Mafia" and the "Havana Mafia" struggle for
control, against the backdrop of Cancun, the opulent resort on Mexico's
Caribbean. It's a power struggle for who will control the underworld
consuming Cuba's political economy.
The Cuban underworld has been flourishing on the margins of the economic
embargo and political stalemate between Havana and Washington for nearly
half a century. But with Fidel no longer on the scene, the illicit
activities that characterized the Cuban "informal" economy are
surfacing, and they are accompanied by violence.
Less than a month after Fidel announced he was temporarily relinquishing
power, the Miami and Havana Mafias began their turf wars. At the end of
July 2007, the body of Luis Lara, a Havana Cuban who sought political
asylum in the United States in 2002, was found a dozen miles from
Cancun, his body riddled with bullets. Three other bodies were found,
all shot, in as many days. The murders were believed to be associated
with a Miami-based human trafficking operation responsible for bringing
thousands of Cubans to the United States.
Mexican officials grew alarmed; violence in Cancun has largely been
confined to turf wars among drug cartels, but suddenly Cuban-on-Cuban
violence is escalating as the conflicting interests of Miami Cubans (in
human trafficking) and Havana Cubans (in drug and consumer goods)
smuggling are converging. "All tourists are safe," María Salmerón,
spokesperson for the state prosecutor's office in Cancun, told
reporters. "These episodes are most likely the result of retaliation
within organized criminal gang elements."
The gruesome slaying brought attention to the profitable business the
Miami Mafia operates out of Cancun. "There is concern on the part of our
[immigration] service on how to deal with this new phenomenon," Eusebio
Romero, regional director of the Mexican Immigration Institute, said at
the time. Mexican law requires that illegal aliens be deported, but not
necessarily to their country of origin. Cubans have used this loophole
to enter Mexico illegally, pay a fine of 10,000 pesos (roughly 910 USD),
and then be given a 30-day visa to leave the country – which they do by
boarding a bus to the border, crossing into the United States, and then
requesting political asylum, which is automatically granted under
American law.
Mr. Romero indicated that in 2007, more than 600 Cubans arrived in the
Yucatan peninsula illegally, and that number is expected to increase
significantly in 2008. "We lack the funds to increase patrols," he said,
adding that if Cubans are intercepted at sea, they are handed over to
the Cuban Navy.
Mexican officials estimate that just over 9,000 Cubans have entered the
United States through Mexico between 2005 and 2007. Each Cuban pays an
average of 10,000 USD to the Miami Mafia for safe passage from Cuba to
the U.S.-Mexico border.
"There is a silent exodus taking place from Cuba into [Mexico]," Ramon
Sanchez, director of Democracy Movement, a Miami-based migrant advocacy
group argues. "People in Cuba have no hope for change, and they want out."
And it's become a multimillion-dollar life and death business for the
Miami Mafia. "We believe these people were executed by the
Cuban-American mafia," Quintana Roo State Attorney General Melchor
Rodriguez told the media. "The presence of this organized crime
organization is becoming as dangerous as drug cartels in that they have
a lot of money and are armed."
http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=ef6e328368ba7dc2c96789fea63e8674
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