Federal immigration authorities arrested a South Florida resident who has close family ties to the highest levels of the Cuban regime, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced Thursday.
Adys Lastres Morera, a Cuban national and lawful U.S. permanent resident living in Miami, was taken into custody this week by ICE agents because the government says she “poses a threat to the United States and undermines American foreign policy interests.”
According to federal authorities, Lastres Morera is the sister of Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, the executive president of Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., a business conglomerate operated by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces.
Established in the 1990s under military control, GAESA was the Cuban Armed Forces’ strategic response to the economic collapse that followed the Soviet Union’s fall and the tightening of U.S. sanctions in place at the time.
Despite being state-owned, GAESA’s accounts are exempt from audits by the Office of the Comptroller General. Gladys Bejerano, the entity’s director, admitted to this lack of oversight in a 2024 interview; shortly thereafter, she retired.
U.S. officials say GAESA is “a corrupt organization that has a stranglehold on 70% of Cuba’s economy.”
“The Cuban military-controlled GAESA, which is the heart of that country’s kleptocratic communist system, controls up to $20 billion in illicit assets,” said John Condon, ICE Homeland Security Investigations acting Executive Associate Director.
READ MORE: Thirty years after deadly plane shoot-down, Raúl Castro indicted by the U.S.
Federal officials allege that Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera is directly responsible for managing GAESA’s internationally held illicit assets. The U.S. State Department announced earlier this month that she and state-owned company was slapped with sanctions.
In their statement, ICE said GAESA’s revenues “total more than three times the Cuban government’s budget and benefit only corrupt elites,” and were “funneled to hidden overseas bank accounts while everyday Cubans continued to suffer under the country’s communist rule.”
Adys Lastres Morera is currently being held in ICE custody pending formal removal proceedings. She originally entered the United States as a lawful permanent resident on January 13, 2023, ICE officials said.
The State Department ultimately deemed her removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Permitting her to stay, officials argued, would run counter to U.S. foreign policy objectives toward Cuba and conflict with “ongoing U.S. efforts to impose costs on and deny privileges to networks connected to Cuban officials who act against U.S. interests.”
“Allowing [Adys] Lastres Morera to remain in the country would send a signal that Cuban regime-affiliated networks could continue to access the U.S.’s financial, educational and social institutions — but that is not the case," ICE officials said.
The arrest of Adys Lastres Morera comes at a time of increased pressure by the Trump administration on Cuba.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department announced criminal charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro. The indictment accuses Castro of ordering the shootdown of two small planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Castro, who turns 95 next month, was Cuba’s defense minister at the time. The charges, which were secretly filed by a grand jury in April, included murder and destruction of an airplane. Five Cuban military pilots were also charged.
The Castro indictment has led many to believe that the administration is following the same playbook it did in January when it ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro
On Thursday, Trump again raised the specter of possible U.S. military intervention in Cuba. He said previous U.S. presidents have considered intervening in Cuba for decades, but that “it looks like I’ll be the one that does it.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters separately that the Trump administration wants to resolve differences with Cuba peacefully, but is doubtful the U.S. can reach a diplomatic resolution with the island’s current government.
