Feb

23

Bad Missionaries (Cont’d)

Posted by at 3:48 pm on February 23, 2007
Category: Criminal Penalties • Cuba Sanctions • OFAC

Restaurante Floridita: La Cuna del DaiquiriThe criminal complaint filed against the two Florida men who obtained Cuba travel licenses for fake churches is amusing reading, at least if you enjoy reading about gangs that couldn’t shoot straight. Some 4,500 people traveled on the fake churches’ licenses and it’s easy to see how the authorities caught wind of the scheme:

During interviews by Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), travelers returning to the U.S. after traveling on these licenses admitted . . . that they were not traveling for religious purposes.

That is ICE-Special-Agent-Speak for what probably really happened:

CBP Agent: Welcome to the U.S., sir.

Tourist (dressed in tropical shirt and Oakley sunglasses): It’s great to be back.

CBP Agent: I see you were in Cuba doing missionary work.

Tourist: Me? No, dude, I was there drinking mojitos and smokin’ Cohibas. I was too wasted to do any missionary work.

The complaint also states that the defendants made up the names of churches and pastors and opened up mailboxes for the fictional churches at various UPS stores. Made-up church names included the First Church of Christ, the Assumption Church of Christ, Woodland Church of Christ, Outreach Hispanic Ministries. and the Church of Life of Ocoee.

According to the complaint, the defendants then filed OFAC license applications for these churches using the maildrops as addresses and providing fictional congregation sizes for the churches. One of the other things that tipped off authorities to the scheme — aside from the distinctly nonreligious demeanor of the tourists — was that the numbers of people traveling on these licenses exceeded the number of congregants for the churches.

The two defendants were stopped in Miami on a return trip from Cuba and they produced the Assumption Church of Christ license. When questioned separately, one of the defendants allegedly admitted immediately that the Assumption Church of Christ didn’t exist. “You have me dead to rights,” he is alleged to have said.

That would be, fairly, an understatement.

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Copyright © 2007 Clif Burns. All Rights Reserved.
(No republication, syndication or use permitted without my consent.)

5 Comments:

Two comments:

1) It’s obvious the feds did no checking before issuing the licenses.

2) Although mojitos are good I’ll bet the tourists were drinking Cuba Libres.

Comment by Linda on February 23rd, 2007 @ 4:12 pm

Using “Assumption” in connection with “Church of Christ” should have been a dead giveaway since Churches of Christ do not celebrate or even recognize any dates on the liturgical calendar, not even Easter or Christmas, let alone the Assumption.

Comment by Mike Deal on February 24th, 2007 @ 2:25 am

You are missing the point that there are essentially thousands of people who were duped into thinking they could travel to Cuba with these licenses. The close knit community of Dade county has given millions to these criminals thinking they were in effect obeying, not breaking the law, to travel to Cuba to see family members.

Unfortunately you joke that they are American tourists who drink mojitos when in fact they are generally Cubans and Cuban Americans who return to the island to care for and visit family members.

Comment by anonymous on February 26th, 2007 @ 10:30 am

Anonymous makes a good point. My story about the returning American who was drinking mojitos in Havana was meant to underline the stupidity of the defendants who would have had to have known that given the sheer number of people involved — most of whom would indeed be Cuban-Americans returning to visit family — it would be inevitable that a number would admit that they were not there for religious missions.

The issue will be whether the US Attorney goes after the people who traveled on these licenses. The press release distinctly left open that possibility. Anonymous may well be right that many or most might have been duped and believed the travel legitimate. On the other hand, there may well be evidence that the many knew that they had to be prepared to lie to CBP on their re-entry into the U.S.

Comment by Clif Burns on February 26th, 2007 @ 11:30 am

Whether the purpose of the trips was to drink mojitos/libres or to visit family members, it was equally obvious that the travelers were not doing missionary work for non-existent churches. I don’t buy that anyone was duped by this scam other than the licensing authorities.

Comment by edolescent on February 26th, 2007 @ 12:25 pm