$61 Million Ordered from Relative of Batista Henchman

Granma

1 November, 2006

Cuban-American banker Eduardo Masferrer —the cousin of Rolando Masferrer, a Batista dictatorship assassin and a fervent supporter of the Bush made-in-Miami "transition" plan for Cuba— is being asked by US justice to return $61 million USD he stole as part of a colossus scam that led to the bankruptcy of 300 small investors.

This claim comes just after Federal District Judge K. Mitchel Moore sentenced Masferrer to 150 years in prison. The sentence handed to Masferrer and two of his managers, Carlos Bernace and John Jacobs, includes an order to return some sort of compensation to the fraud victims.

Between 1998 and 1999, Masferrer and his accomplices committed fraud by artificially inflating the revenue of operations and the financial assets of the Hamilton Bank, misinforming investors, bank regulators and stock exchange officials.

On October 6, Masferrer became federal prisoner number 63724-004 for committing fraud against financial institutions, bank fraud, bank fraud (second case), for betraying trust in the handling third party funds, obstructing the investigation of a financial institution, and giving false statements to government agencies.

As he was being tried in a Miami court, Masferrer was not expecting such a severe reaction, as he made an offer to return $2 million USD.

Just before his arrest, the money laundering specialist and ringleader of the Miami-Batista circle was bragging about his vision of "another" Cuba.

But it appears that Masferrer's financial troubles do not end here. A few days ago, the Panamanian Supreme Court of Justice ordered the trial of Samuel Lewis Galindo, president of the Panamanian bank Banitsmo. He is accused of having collaborated with Masferrer and his wife Maura to steal more than $20 million USD from Mexican investor Jose Pineda Trinidad.

Born in Cuba and living in Miami, Eduardo Masferrer obtained Panamanian citizenship on the October 31, 2001 thanks to his friend Mireya Moscoso, one of the Miami anti-Cuba mafia’s rigid supporters, who at that time was the president of Panama. As president, Moscoso pardoned and released terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who was in jail for having attempted to blow up an auditorium packed with Panamanian university students where Fidel Castro was to speak.

In Panama, Masferrer bought $4.4 million USD in stocks at the Hamilton Bancorp Inc. while he was owner of one-fourth of Banitsmo.

Eduardo Masferrer’s cousins, Rolando, a henchmen for the bloody Batista dictatorship that reigned terror on Cuba for many years, arrived in Key West aboard his private yacht on January 1, 1959, escaping after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. He was granted political asylum on January 26 of that same year.

At the time, the revolutionary Cuban government immediately accused Masferrer of having escaped with $17 million USD from the public coffers. The US authorities did not even bother replying to the accusation or the extradition request for the assassin. His own accomplices brought his life to an abrupt end when he was blown up in Miami by a car bomb. (J.G.A)