The primary online portal through which Cubans in the United States send aid to relatives back on the island ceased operations under pressure from U.S. sanctions.
Envioscuba.com has long served as a key portal for Cuban Americans to send support back home, but the operation was directly connected to the Grupo de Administracion Empresarial, or GAESA, a military-run conglomerate that controls much of Cuba’s economy. Visitors to the website are now greeted by a message saying it is ceasing operations.
“Due to reasons beyond our control, our platform can no longer provide services,” it said.
“All approved and pending orders will be shipped. Our support team will be available to assist you with any questions or requests you may have,” the message concluded.
The message is now the only display on the website, blocking any attempt to contact customer support.
Emilio Morales, president at the Miami-based consulting firm Havana Consulting Group, explained to the Associated Press that the portal and those like it would sell and deliver products stored in GAESA warehouses on the island, directly contributing to the group’s coffers.
“The trend is for all of this to disappear, because GAESA is behind it all,” he said, adding that all other similar portals are likely to shut down soon.
The shutdown is among the most crippling of an increasing exodus of businesses from the island, following U.S. sanctions against the island’s economic nerve center.
Christopher Hernandez-Roy, acting director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Americas Program, described GAESA to the Washington Examiner earlier this month as a “monolithic economic conglomerate” controlled by the Cuban armed forces. The lack of public information about it forces some guesswork, but open-source intelligence suggests it controls anywhere from 40% to 70% of the Cuban economy.
Hernandez-Roy argued that GAESA “is a legitimate source of revenue in the sense that they are doing real business, but that business then benefits a certain cadre of the military, and that money does not make its way into government coffers. It’s not part of the state budget, so it doesn’t get reinvested in the Cuban military.”
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT GAESA, THE CUBAN ECONOMIC CONGLOMERATE TARGETED BY TRUMP
This has helped lead to the economic malaise the island faces, as the enterprise is run by the state, yet doesn’t benefit the state.
The new series of sanctions against Havana, combined with the loss of Venezuelan oil, has put the government in an existential danger, with operations in Cuba largely coming to a halt.
