The plot reads like a detective novel — shadowy oligarchs, a phantom airline, an unexplained death and a tropical island on the cusp of change. The twist is that this tale of alleged capitalist greed and corruption unfolds in Cuba, in the twilight of Castro rule, and the detectives are Communist Party officials.
If this were fiction, the author would be accused of over-egging things by making one of the protagonists a former bodyguard for former Chilean president Salvador Allende who becomes a guerrilla commander and ends up a tycoon nicknamed Potbelly.
Cuba’s biggest corruption scandal in years has ensnared stalwarts of the revolution, led to dozens of arrests and resignations and shone a light on clandestine preparations for the government’s possible collapse. An investigation into the food firm Rio Zaza — a joint venture between the Cuban government and the Chilean bodyguard-turned-businessman, Max Marambio — has spread to the airport, where senior officials allegedly used state aircraft to rake in millions of illicit dollars.
The civil aviation minister, Rogelio Acevedo, was fired in April and last month it was the turn of Jorge Luis Sierra Cruz, the transport minister, to be “liberated from his duties for errors committed in the performance of his functions.”
Corruption scandals are not new, but what has shocked Cubans is that the alleged scams are said to have been an effort to cash in before things crumble.
“It has become evident that there are people in government and state positions who are preparing a financial assault for when the revolution falls,” Esteban Morales, a historian and prominent commentator, wrote on the Web site of the state National Artists and Writers Union of Cuba.
Corruption posed a graver threat to the revolution than political dissidents, he said, because it came from within — from greedy party apparatchiks.
“Others are likely have everything ready to produce the transfer of state property into private hands, like what happened in the former Soviet Union,” he said.
The scandal broke in December last year, when the authorities jailed Lucy Leal, an accountant for Rio Zaza, over alleged irregularities at the food and drinks producer. More arrests followed, including employees of a sister company, the Sol y Son travel agency. In April, Rio Zaza’s Chilean manager, Roberto Baudrand, was found dead in his Havana flat in unexplained circumstances.
Suicide, said some; stress caused by seven-hour interrogation sessions, others said. Chilean diplomats lobbied in vain for an independent post-mortem examination.
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