Statement from Miami-Dade County Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez on Further Sanctions Against the Cuban Regime’s Revenue Network

Today’s sanctions strike directly at the financial network that allows Cuba’s communist dictatorship to enrich its ruling elite while the Cuban people endure hunger, blackouts, repression, and economic misery.

The designation of Almacenes Universales, RAFIN, and Banco Financiero Internacional exposes how GAESA controls the movement of money, goods, and foreign transactions across the island. These are not ordinary companies operating for the benefit of the Cuban people. They are essential components of the military-controlled economic empire that finances the regime’s security apparatus and protects its grip on power.

The actions against GeoMinera and Antillana de Acero also make clear that the dictatorship cannot continue exploiting Cuba’s mineral and industrial resources—often with the assistance of foreign companies and hostile governments—while denying ordinary Cubans the opportunity to build businesses, own property, and prosper through their own work.

The designation of Annalie Lilliam Rueda Cardero, the wife of former Cuban intelligence chief Alejandro Castro Espín, sends an equally important message: the Castro family and its inner circle will not be permitted to hide behind relatives, corporate structures, or international financial networks while benefiting from the suffering of the Cuban people.

I commend President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for confronting the regime’s financial machinery and warning foreign banks, investors, and companies that doing business with Cuba’s military-controlled sectors carries serious consequences.

Every dollar that flows through GAESA and its affiliated entities strengthens the institutions responsible for surveillance, political imprisonment, censorship, and repression. Cutting off those resources is not an attack on the Cuban people. It is an act of solidarity with the Cuban people and with every political prisoner, dissident, independent journalist, entrepreneur, and family demanding a future without communism.

The objective must remain clear: accountability for the oppressors, freedom for political prisoners, economic liberty for the Cuban people, and a democratic Cuba governed by the rule of law, not by the Castro family, the military, or the Communist Party.

Dariel Fernandez 

Tax Collector