Cuba: The Secret Trips of Raul Castro’s Grandson to Panama
Private jets, shopping sprees, and links with businesspeople
HAVANA TIMES – Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, known as “El Cangrejo” (the Crab) and grandson of Cuban general Raul Castro, has become a frequent visitor to Panama, using private planes for his travels. Although his presence has been low-profile, it has been confirmed that he has visited the country numerous times in recent years, including 13 trips in 2024 and at least ten in 2025 — up through September — some of them on dates significant to Panama’s political life.
A recent investigation published by La Prensa, based on documents obtained by this Panamanian newspaper and the Venezuelan outlet Armando.Info, as well as by the organizations Transparencia Venezuela en el Exilio and the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP), reveals new details about the travels of Rodriguez Castro, age 41, holding the rank of colonel and former head of security for his grandfather. His ties to powerful figures in the region and his substantial purchases in the country highlight the connections between Havana’s regime and Panama’s business circles.
Private aircraft
According to the investigation, Rodriguez Castro traveled to Panama on several private aircraft, including at least one flight aboard a Learjet 55 bearing the Venezuelan tail number YV3440. On September 24, 2025, the Learjet 55 crashed in Maiquetía (Venezuela) with two passengers on board; one of them was Ramon Carretero Napolitano, a Panamanian businessman and contractor for the regimes of Venezuela and Cuba, where one of his flagship companies operates: Corporacion Logística del Caribe, S.A.
An employee of Carretero Napolitano, Edwin Pitty, who previously managed the businessman’s affairs in Caracas between 2017 and 2019, was appointed Panama’s ambassador to Cuba, despite having no prior diplomatic career.
Investigations into the plane crash of the private jet YV3440, which Carretero Napolitano survived, exposed a network of influence tying the Panamanian businessman to the upper echelons of the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes. These investigations were also key to uncovering the secret trips of Raul Castro’s grandson to Panama.
On May 1, 2024, four days before the presidential elections that Jose Raul Mulino would go on to win, “El Cangrejo” arrived in Panama aboard another aircraft with tail number YV654T and three pilots of Venezuelan origin. That same aircraft, registered in Venezuela, has been used by Miguel Diaz-Canel for official trips, according to Armando.Info. There is no immigration record of this trip in Panama, except for the flight manifest.
On that occasion, Rodriguez Castro was accompanied by Brigadier General Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, a deputy in Cuba’s parliament and a member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC). The military official succeeded the late president of the powerful business conglomerate Gaesa, Division General Luis Alberto Rodríguez Lopez-Calleja — Raul Guillermo’s father — after his death in 2022.
Gaesa manages the most lucrative sectors of the Cuban economy through companies registered abroad — several of them in Panama — and with operations that include banks, ships, hotels, foreign-currency stores, and control over remittances. The military conglomerate has achieved a level of autonomy comparable to that of a sovereign state.
The Panamanian outlet La Prensa also reports that “General Lastres Morera appears in various companies in Panama, some of them owners of real estate in the country’s capital.”
Meanwhile, in 2025, most of Raul Castro’s grandson’s flights to Panama have been aboard a luxurious Dassault Falcon 900EX Easey jet registered in San Marino, a microstate that, curiously, has no airport at all but promotes its civil aircraft registry.
Shopping trips
Between September 20 and 22, 2025, Raul Guillermo Rodríguez Castro and an accompanying traveler were also in Panama’s Chiriquí province.
Local media reported that the Cubans had been shopping, acquiring goods for which they paid “substantial amounts of money,” according to intelligence sources, who added that this was not the first time they had traveled to the country for this purpose.
“They are also believed to have done the same — on an unspecified date — in Coclé, where the Cuban is said to own property, although this information has not been corroborated,” La Prensa reported.
While figures like Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, a member of the Castro family and closely linked to the regime, travel by private jet and shop in Panama, millions of Cubans face a crisis of extreme poverty. The shortage of food, medicine, and basic services has pushed many into deplorable living conditions, while the ruling elite — whose wealth comes largely from the exploitation of public resources and high-level business activities — enjoy luxuries unthinkable for the vast majority of the population.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.