GITMO security forces on Friday detained three Cuban males who, posing as foodservice workers with poorly forged credentials, tried to access the facility via the heavily guarded northeast gate, a fortified crossing separating the naval station and Cuba. Closed to the public since 1962, the Cold War checkpoint is guarded by Marines and electronic surveillance equipment. Prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, 3,000 Cuban contractors passed through daily; today, only two elderly Cuban workers walk across to work on the base.
The three men, crammed into the cab of a 1970 Dodge pickup truck, were neither elderly nor recognized by the Marines patrolling the gate. A tarp covered the truck’s bed. The driver, who spoke broken English, told the guards they were there to deliver a special order of Cuban sandwiches to the officers’ club at GITMO.
Although GITMO has an officers’ club in the Bayview complex, its meals are prepared on the base or sourced from Florida, never brought from Cuba.
Upon inspection, the Marines found 75 empty 5-gallon gasoline cans under the tarp. Suspecting a possible attack, Marines detained the men at gunpoint until a Spanish-speaking US Navy JAG investigator arrived to question them.
The gasoline cans were found to be empty. The Cubans told the investigator they hoped to enter GITMO to steal diesel, as the counry’s fuel shortage and widespread blackouts left them without fuel for their home generators.
“Desperation breeds stupidity,” a GITMO source told Real Raw News. “They knew they couldn’t pull it off—but they didn’t care. They took a one-in-a-million chance.”
Cuba has endured three grid-wide blackouts in the last month, with energy ministers blaming them on a US energy blockade, while Cuban Electric Union sub-boss Conrado Briseno suggested, without proof, that the US was using modulated electromagnetic pulse weapons (EMPs) to cripple Cuba’s power grid.
Our source said the three Cuban males are still in military custody.
We’ll provide an update if we get more info.