U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested Cuban-born citizen Adys Lastres Morera this Thursday—sister of the director of the Cuban military conglomerate Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera—after Washington revoked the former’s permanent residency, citing alleged collaboration with the top leadership of the Havana government.
“Morera managed real estate assets and resided in Florida while simultaneously providing support to the communist regime in Havana, until I revoked her permanent residency permit,” stated U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a message posted on social media, in which he highlighted that she “has been detained and is now in ICE custody.”
In the statement released by ICE, the immigration authority refers to Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera—Adys Lastres Morera’s sister—as the alleged “individual responsible for managing GAESA’s illicit assets abroad.” The statement also notes that “the organization’s revenues—which exceed the Cuban government’s budget by more than three times and benefit only corrupt elites—were diverted to hidden bank accounts overseas, while ordinary Cubans continued to suffer under the country’s communist regime.”
According to John Condon, Acting Executive Associate Director of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit, Adys Lastres’s presence in the United States “carries potentially serious consequences for the country’s foreign policy.” Therefore, he indicated, “allowing” her to “remain” in the country would send the signal that “networks affiliated with the Cuban regime could continue to access U.S. financial, educational, and social institutions”—something which, the official emphasized, “is not the case.” Asserting that GAESA constitutes the “core of that country’s kleptocratic communist system” and that this “corrupt organization” holds “absolute control over 70% of the Cuban economy,” ICE has indicated that allowing the detainee to remain within U.S. borders would pose a risk of “undermining U.S. foreign policy objectives toward Cuba.”
Such continued presence, the immigration agency added, is, in turn, “incompatible with current U.S. efforts to impose sanctions on—and deny privileges to—networks linked to Cuban officials acting against U.S. interests.” Indeed, earlier this very month of May, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed new sanctions against GAESA and its director, as well as against a mining company.
It is worth noting that Adys Lastres entered the United States as a lawful permanent resident on January 13, 2023, according to the agency itself, which added that the administration led by President Donald Trump “has not identified records indicating that she has applied for naturalization or a U.S. passport.”
Her arrest, conversely, took place shortly after the U.S. Department of Justice indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro—an accusation that was subsequently characterized by the head of the Cuban government, Miguel Díaz-Canel, as an “attempt” to “justify” potential military aggression.
