“I’m always scared,” said Pedro as he deftly twisted large tobacco leaves to make fake famous name Havana cigars in a clandestine workshop in the Cuban capital.
If caught in his illegal workshop, known as a chinchal, Pedro could face a prison term.
“It’s not a business, but a necessity to survive,” Pedro said in the dim light of the dilapidated building.
PHOTO: AFP
With long-suffering Cuba hard hit by the economic crisis and pounded by two hurricanes last year, the government has stepped up its fight against illegal trade, including in cigars.
Sales in the famous smokes fell 3 percent last year, a report released at a Havana trade show last month showed.
But workers such as Pedro do not plan to give up their lucrative business any time soon despite the risks.
The 33-year-old, sporting an earring and a tracksuit, learned his craft in state factories, making famous brands such as Cohiba, Romeo y Julieta or Montecristo cigars.
He used to earn the country’s average monthly wage of US$17, but he declined to reveal the size of his pay rise since turning to the black market five years ago.
Pedro’s skilled hands make around 100 cigars a day, and a box of 25 sells for between US$30 and US$40, four or five times below the official price.
Cuban President Raul Castro’s government recently underlined the need to defend the values of the island’s 50-year-old revolution in its campaign against corruption, which impacts on an annual tobacco income of US$390 million.
“Forgeries and the black market are two scourges which really affect the image of Havana cigars on the one hand because the products are false and on the other because they affect the distribution network that we’ve built up,” said Adargelio Garrido, legal director of the Anglo-Cuban group Habanos.
Each traveler to Cuba is allowed to take home up to two boxes of cigars, but authorities still confiscate between 1,500 and 1,700 boxes per month made in illegal workshops like Pedro’s.
A small cement staircase leads to the crumbling workshop, which operates with a network of helpers.
Farmers from the western Pinar del Rio Province — birthplace of Cuba’s prestigious tobacco — provide the leaves, while factory workers steal wooden boxes, paper rings and other official stamps and certificates.
“It’s not that difficult to get supplies from factories because all the administrative services work separately, so they’re not suited to check ups,” said 42-year-old Juan, one of many clandestine retailers.
Pedro said he turned to the illegal trade five years ago when his father fell sick. He set up the operation in the elderly man’s home and turned one room into an illegal workshop.
“No one knows what I’m doing here, not even members of my family. It’s very dangerous,” he whispered as he mechanically lined up cigars on a table, surrounded by tobacco leaves scattered on the floor.
“I’d like to give it up, or work outside Cuba where you get paid for the value of your work,” Pedro said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary