U.S. law enforcement authorities announced in Miami on Wednesday that they had seized more than 600,000 gallons of fuel at ports in Florida and Texas — including Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale — valued at $2.8 million and bound for Cuba in apparent violation of Trump administration sanctions.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officials said the biodiesel shipments were headed to ENETEC, a state-run Cuban wholesale firm. ENETEC has been barred by the U.S. this year from receiving such imports under President Donald Trump's de facto fuel blockade of Cuba, part of his administration's campaign to dislodge the island's communist regime from power.
HSI did not name the U.S. individuals or companies allegedly involved in arranging the shipments to ENETEC. But José R. Figueroa, the HSI agent in charge in Miami, said the "unlawful sanctions-evasions scheme," intercepted last month, was "deliberate and coordinated."
Port Everglades — where almost 500,000 gallons were seized — and Port Houston in Texas were cited as the launching points for the intended shipments.
Under this year's U.S. sanctions, only private companies in Cuba are authorized to receive fuel imports, a Trump administration concession intended to maintain some modicum of food transport and other economic activity on the island amid increasing U.S. pressure on the regime.
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Vanguard Energy in Coral Gables is one of the companies licensed under the policy to export fuel to Cuba.
As a result of the arrangement, the price of diesel in Cuba has in fact dropped significantly in recent months from more than $8 a liter to less than $3.
The U.S. is also sending humanitarian exports of fuel to Cuba along with other aid via mostly religious nonprofits. Figueroa insisted HSI's Florida and Texas seizure operations "did not interfere" with those shipments.
Still, critics say the Trump fuel sanctions, on top of the U.S. economic embargo that has been in place against Cuba for almost seven decades, has exacerbated the country's collapse.
In the absence of fuel to power Cuba's antiquated electrical grid and other services, protracted blackouts are chronic, and uncollected garbage is regularly piled up on the streets of the capital, Havana, and other cities.
But the Trump administration insists the sanctions have. been necessary to "break the [Cuban] regime's monopoly on fuel" supplies and distribution.
Despite the tightening of sanctions screws, however, Cuba's regime insists it has no intention of leaving power, and negotiations between the government and the Trump administration's Cuba point man, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, appear stalled.
That has made more conservative Cuban exiles in Miami and South Florida impatient.
The Coast Guard has also made illicit seizures of fuel bound for Cuba this year.
