Havana/Four Cuban Freemasons, including the writer and former political prisoner Ángel Santiesteban Pratswere sentenced this Thursday to sentences of between two and four years of limitation of freedom for exchanging just 300 dollars at the informal market rate. The operations, carried out in 2023 and 2025, involved funds from the Llansó National Masonic Asylum, a charitable institution that cares for the elderly in Havana, according to an information note from the Popular Municipal Court of Diez de Octubre published in the networks of Reasons of Cuba. The sentence comes in the midst of the prolonged confrontation between the Government and the leaders of Cuban Freemasonry.
The Court imposed the highest sanction, four years of limitation of freedom and a fine of 25,000 pesos, on José Ramón Viñas Alonso, former Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of Grade 33 and president of the asylum’s Board of Trustees. Fernando Marcos García, the institution’s accountant, received three years and a fine of 20,000 pesos, while Santiesteban and Osvaldo Ernesto Villegas Digat were sentenced to two years and fines of 20,000 pesos each.
The penalties do not imply imprisonment, but restrictions on freedom. The court also imposed on the four defendants the deprivation of rights, the prohibition of leaving the country and of holding positions or offices. The sentence can still be appealed before the Popular Provincial Court of Havana.
The penalties do not imply imprisonment, but restrictions on freedom
The crime attributed to those convicted is “illegal currency trafficking”, contemplated in article 315.1, paragraph g), of the Penal Code. What is striking is that exchanging dollars and euros outside banks is a daily practice in Cuba, where the differences between official and informal rates have turned the latter market into a common way to obtain national currency. The two transactions punished amounted to just $300 and were carried out almost two years apart.
According to charging documents published by CubaNetthe first of the changes occurred on September 14, 2023, when Santiesteban handed over 49,600 pesos of his property in exchange for 200 dollars belonging to the asylum. The second occurred on June 13, 2025, when Villegas Digat exchanged another 100 dollars from the institution for 37,500 pesos. Both operations were authorized by Viñas Alonso.
The defense, led by lawyer Roberto Ortega Ortiz, maintained that the transactions did not constitute a crime and that none of those involved obtained illicit personal benefits. According to the lawyer, the first 200 dollars allowed the purchase of powdered milk for the elderly, while the second operation provided pesos to the nursing home to face emergencies and allowed Villegas to obtain foreign currency to buy medicines for his son.
The striking thing is that exchanging dollars and euros outside the banks is a daily practice in Cuba
The independent organization Cubalex also questioned the legal bases of the accusation. In an analysis published this Wednesday, he pointed out that the operations were recorded in the asylum’s accounting books and that there were no indications of clandestine intermediation or personal gain. He also questioned the proportionality of the sanctions.
The procedure also contains an explicit political element. In its indictment, the Prosecutor’s Office included among the personal assessments about Santiesteban that the writer “does not engage in any socially useful activity” and that “he openly expresses himself against the revolutionary process that prevails in Cuba.”
The file was also investigated by a body specialized in crimes against State Security, despite the fact that the infraction attributed to the accused belongs to the scope of crimes against the national economic order.
