Visitors bring goods to Cuba

HAVANA — The human mule is in her 70s, gaunt and hunched over with short, white hair and the deeply wrinkled face of a chain-smoker.


She lives in Miami with her daughter but wanted to see her son and grandson in Cuba. After nearly three years of saving, she still didn’t have the $500 she needed for a plane ticket.

So she knew exactly which Little Havana travel agency to visit — and agreed to haul clothes, canned meat and evaporated milk to strangers in Cuba for a free seat on a charter flight.

"My daughter and I both work, but we only have just enough to live,” the woman said in her son’s central Havana living room. "I did it this time, and I don’t want to do it again.”

Now that President Barack Obama has allowed Americans with relatives in Cuba to make unlimited visits, such underground courier services are expanding.


Heavier requests
The so-called "mulas” have always helped the U.S. exile community support their families by delivering hard-to-get goods in a country plagued by shortages of items from toilet paper to potatoes.
But now they are starting to ship heavier and more-obscure items, such as auto-parts and walkers, and advertise that they can deliver documents or family photos faster than any mail service to a country where the Internet is severely restricted.

The couriers carry everything from new underwear to Grand Theft Auto and other popular video games. They also bring drugs such as Prilosec, Advil and even anti-bacterial cream, as Cuba’s much-touted medical system suffers supply shortages as well.

While such services are common between the U.S. and foreign countries, particularly in Latin America, the woman requested her name not be published for fear it could jeopardize future trips to Cuba.

It’s not illegal for families to carry goods to Cuba from the U.S., but making a business of it violates both the U.S. embargo and Cuban laws limiting private enterprise.

The couriers once carried about half of up to $1.4 billion that Cuban-Americans send relatives in Cuba each year, said Manuel Orozco of the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. But Obama lifted restrictions on money transfers, another reason couriers now carry more durable goods — or charge lower fees.

No one from the Cuban government would comment on the couriers. But police stage periodic raids so others will get the message.


by the assocated press