Cuban Regime's Crackdown on Informal Currency Market Hits Families and Remittances Hard

The Cuban government's latest crackdown on the informal currency exchange market is having a profound impact on families both on the island and abroad.

The authorities have ramped up their efforts to dismantle alternative remittance channels—informal systems established by exiled Cubans to bypass government controls—and have shut down several platforms operating from Miami, Panama, and Mexico.

Officials frame this as a “battle against illegal currency networks,” but in reality, it aims to redirect exile funds through channels controlled by the military conglomerate GAESA, which oversees the entire dollarized economy of the nation.

“All the agencies through which we could send money without it falling into the hands of the dictatorship are shutting down,” lamented Alexander Figueredo, a doctor and activist known as 'Doctor Patria,' in a viral post on X (formerly Twitter).

“The few left open are tied to GAESA, that monster that devours everything and now wants to suck up remittances too.”

Informal Channels Under Fire

The platforms being closed are not officially recognized businesses in Cuba but rather informal channels created by Cubans in exile to support their families without using the state financial system.

They usually operated discreetly, connecting intermediaries abroad with contacts on the island who delivered money in pesos or MLC at fairer rates, without official interference.

This parallel network has been the invisible lifeline for Cuba's domestic economy for years but now faces direct persecution.

The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) claims to have dismantled several “illegal currency structures,” including one allegedly led from Miami by exiled Humberto Julio Mora Caballero.

According to the regime, these networks moved over 1,000 million Cuban pesos and around 250,000 dollars between February and September 2025. Behind the criminalizing rhetoric, however, lies a truth: the State lost control of remittances and is attempting to regain it by force.

GAESA: The Octopus Controlling Remittances

In Cuba, all official money transfer routes—such as FINCIMEX or AIS Remesas Cuba—are under the umbrella of GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.), a military consortium managing the country's strategic sectors, including tourism, banking, foreign trade, telecommunications, and finance.

GAESA effectively functions as the regime's central bank, operating outside public transparency and accumulating billions in foreign currency, while the population faces its worst liquidity crisis in decades.

In 2020, the Trump administration sanctioned GAESA and its subsidiaries, blocking any transactions with their companies. As a result, Western Union ceased operations in Cuba, leaving millions of families without an official means to receive remittances. Since then, exiled Cubans have turned to these informal networks, which the regime now seeks to dismantle.

As Figueredo puts it: “That octopus that swallows everything now wants to suck up remittances too. I won’t send a dollar through there. That’s financing the executioner and allowing them to rob the people right under their noses.”

An Official System Without Liquidity

Even when Cubans use "legal" channels, the outcome is no better.

In November, a woman living in Germany reported sending 2,200 euros to her sister in Havana through Banco Metropolitano, a state entity. Two months later, the money hadn't been delivered, with the bank citing a "lack of cash" to complete the transfer.

Such cases are widespread across the island. Cuban banks lack real liquidity, with foreign currency accounts blocked or restricted, forcing customers to wait weeks—or even months—to access their own funds.

In practice, the state financial system has become inoperative: it doesn't guarantee access to remittances, doesn't support foreign currency deposits, and fails to inspire confidence both domestically and internationally.

Remittances and Poverty: The Other Side of Collapse

The remittance crisis is unfolding amid a widespread social and economic collapse marked by a proliferation of diseases and medication shortages.

According to a recent study, 89% of Cubans live in extreme poverty, with the majority partially or wholly reliant on help from abroad.

Salaries in Cuban pesos are insufficient to cover basic needs: food, medicine, hygiene products, and transportation. Instead, almost everything is sold in MLC stores (freely convertible currency), where only digital currencies controlled by the state are accepted.

This results in a forced dollarization: Cubans earn in pesos but must buy in dollars. This structural contradiction—created and maintained by the regime—drives millions to seek alternatives in the informal market, both for currency exchange and receiving aid.

Declared War on the Informal Market

Since mid-November, the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) and official media outlets like Cubadebate and Razones de Cuba have launched a campaign to discredit the informal currency market.

The official narrative blames independent sites like El Toque for “distorting rates” and “fostering speculation,” while concealing the real causes: a lack of faith in the Cuban peso and a shortage of official foreign currency.

Activist Amelia Calzadilla dismantled this narrative on social media: “El Toque isn’t the one making the dollar expensive. It’s the government that imposed a system where everything is bought with foreign currency and nothing is produced in pesos. They created the problem and now seek a scapegoat.”

Her message echoes a widespread sentiment: the regime blames markets and media for a crisis it itself generated.

Control as Policy

The crackdown on the informal market and closure of alternative remittance channels follow a clear logic: to control every dollar entering the country.

As the economic situation becomes increasingly desperate, the State's grip on money flows tightens.

The regime's strategy has three main objectives:

1. Reabsorb remittances into official circuits, so foreign currency ends up in GAESA's hands rather than citizens'.
2. Weaken the emerging private economy, which depends on remittances and the informal market for importing supplies.
3. Reinforce the population's dependency on the State, limiting their alternatives and punishing economic autonomy.

The political message is clear: in Cuba, no form of prosperity—not even family support—can exist outside state control.

Alexander Figueredo, in another message following the shutdown of the agency he used to send money, wrote: “The real blockade is internal, signed and executed by the PCC. Cuba doesn’t collapse from a lack of remittances; it collapses because the dictatorship destroys everything it touches, even what keeps the people alive.”

His stance highlights an emotional fracture within the Cuban diaspora: many exiles refuse to continue sending money through state channels, believing it finances repression or feeds the military business circuit.

Others, however, have no choice: their families depend on those $50 or $100 monthly to survive.

The outcome of this “internal economic war” is twofold: the regime loses revenue, and families lose the little stability they had left.

An Economy in Agony

The assault on the informal currency market, the collapse of the state banking system, and widespread poverty are all part of a systemic crisis within Cuba's model.

The regime needs remittances, but cannot tolerate losing control over them. It needs dollars, but can't generate them. And it needs to blame the “blockade,” but can't hide its own structural failures.

Meanwhile, the dollar and euro continue to dictate the real purchasing power. The Cuban peso devalues weekly, and state banks are drained of cash.

In conclusion, the Cuban regime's “war” against the informal currency market is not an attempt to stabilize the economy: it's a desperate strategy to maintain control over a system it no longer manages.

Persecuting informal networks doesn't solve the problem; it deepens it: leaving families without remittances, entrepreneurs without supplies, and the population without hope.

As GAESA's military government amasses power and dollars, the Cuban people struggle amid inflation, hunger, and fear.

Because, as Alexander Figueredo wrote: “While we send love, sacrifice, and dollars, they send threats, persecution, and fear.”

In Cuba, the remittance economy is also one of resistance. And the regime's attempt to stifle it is yet another direct assault on the everyday lives of its own people.