Medicare fraud pays for Cuban spy activities against U.S.

The Communist Cuban dictatorship is draining hundreds of millions of dollars from America's already financially strapped Medicare program and using the money to finance its military and espionage services, according to one counterintelligence expert specializing in Cuban affairs.

In an exclusive interview with International News Analysis Today, Christopher Simmons not only ties in the Cuban dictatorship with the rampant Medicare fraud, but draws a stunning conclusion about the erosion of American sovereignty in south Florida.

Simmons is a retired Counterintelligence Special Agent with 28 years service in the Army, Army Reserve, and the Defense Intelligence Agency with a specialty in Cuban intelligence affairs. Simmons was part of the team that identified, arrested, and convicted former Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst, Ana Belen Montes, Cuba's highest-ranking spy captured to date. Simmons has appeared on radio and television, and has given testimony before committees of Congress.

Cuban Government As Criminal Enterprise

Medicare fraud usually involves money billed for treatment or services never rendered. Most Medicare fraud in the U.S. occurs in southern Florida, and the majority of the fraud perpetrators flee to Cuba. Law enforcement officials publically state, however, that there is no proof of a connection between Medicare fraud and Cuba.

Ana Belen Montes, 1990.

Simmons pointedly disagrees and does see a clear connection.

"There is a huge difference between proof and evidence," observed Simmons.

"The Cuban government has been a criminal enterprise for 50 years, and has never been reluctant to engage in crime to make money," Simmons declared. Havana has a 50 year history of involvement in breaking international law, from drug trafficking to selling U.S. secrets, Simmons said. He reasons that expansion into a relatively simple scheme as Medicare fraud would be easy for the Communist state.

The Communist Cuban government's wide experience in breaking U.S. and international laws provides "proof of capability and intent" and a "pattern of behavior," Simmons asserted.

In seven out of ten cases, he said, the perpetrators are Cuban-born individuals who have come to the United States since the 1990s and who flee back to Cuba when law enforcement uncover their fraudulent activities. In Cuba, they enjoy every available comfort in return for funneling millions of dollars to the Cuban government.

A report issued by the University of Miami cites statements by a former high-level Cuban intelligence officer indicating that the Cuban government is either directing or assisting the perpetrators to obtain much needed hard currency.

Cuban Official Claims 'Ludicrous'

Cuba officially disclaims any knowledge of either the fraud in south Florida or the presence on the island of the perpetrators of the fraud.

Describing as "ludicrous" Havana's claims of ignorance of the crimes or the criminals. Simmons told INA Today that the newly returned Cuban exiles would have at the very least attracted the attention of members of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, a block-by-block organization of Cuban citizen informers whose job it is to watch other Cuban citizens and report everything they see. Simmons estimates that one out of ten Cubans work for the CDR.

Simmons' ratio of informers to citizen is corroborated by what we know about the conditions in the now-defunct Communist East German dictatorship. As many as one in six East Germans were informers for the Ministry for State Security, the feared Stasi secret police.

A returning Cuban exile living the good life in the tropical gulag that is Cuba would certainly attract the attention of the CDR spies across the island.

Fraud Pays for Espionage

Based on his knowledge of previous Cuban government criminal schemes, Simmons stated that a large part of the Medicare fraud profits go directly to support Cuba's vast foreign and domestic spy network and the military.

The United States is Cuba's only important enemy.

The money taken during Cuba's Medicare fraud scheme has returned to south Florida in the person of well-financed intelligence personnel. Simmons stated that from 150 to 200 Cuban intelligence officers are active in south Florida, vastly outnumbering U.S. spy catchers.

Carmen Kaeren González, suspected to be in Cuba

U.S. counterespionage efforts in south Florida are also impeded by the demands of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Simmons explained that counterintelligence personnel, because of their experience and training, are often deployed to the Iraq and Afghanistan, because they capable of operating both as intelligence officers — those who seek to obtain restricted or secret information — and in their intended role of counterintelligence personnel — spy catchers.

Florida as 'Denied' Area — Like North Korea

As many as 70% of Cuba's spies operate in south Florida, and the limited number of U.S. counterintelligence personnel available in the region spells potential disaster for the United States.

America's resources available in the struggle against Cuban intelligence are so thin that Simmons regards south Florida as a "denied area," an intelligence designation indicating a place where U.S. intelligence operations "are either difficult or impossible."

Examples of other "denied areas" are North Korea and Iran, said Simmons

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have scored impressive victories against Cuban intelligence services, among them the destruction of the Wasp Network in 1998 and the arrest of Ana Belen Montes in 2001.

There is much more to do to protect Americas against Cuban espionage activities, but Cuba has become to many influential Americans a politically correct subject. Within the U.S. policy elite there is often a discernible pro-Cuban element.

The U.S. pro-Cuban lobby includes in its ranks U.S. politicians, Hollywood stars, and think tank experts who regularly support Communist Cuba's agenda.

Silence also aids the Cuban dictatorship. Little or nothing is ever said in the U.S. media — liberal or conservative — about the struggles of pro-freedom activists in Cuba who face regular beatings and imprisonment.

Communist Cuba exists because of the relentless oppression carried out by its ruthless secret police for the benefit of the military and the Communist Party. Medicare fraud is just one more crime to add to the many perpetrated against the U.S. and the people of Cuba.

By Toby Westerman

Source: RenewAmerica

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Cuban Wretch "Escapes" Castro's Paradise

On Thursday, July 14, 2011, a young Cuban who tried to stow away inside the landing gear of a Spanish airliner died during the nine-hour flight from Havana to Madrid. It was, ironically, Lenin who invented the term “voting with their feet” during the Russian Civil War to describe people moving into areas controlled by the Communists. Collectivists have never found occasion to use that term again.


The flight of Cubans out of their horrific prison camp nation to anywhere else is a 60-year-old story. Fidel Castro inherited a nation that was among the most prosperous in the Western Hemisphere. Although there was much to dislike about Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban leader whom Castro ousted, there was also much to admire about Cuba before Castro.

Indeed, there was a great deal for collectivists to admire about Batista. Sumner Welles, Undersecretary of State under Franklin Roosevelt, actually described Batista as a communist. Batista, the first Cuban leader to bring members of the Cuban Communist Party into his Cabinet, described himself as a “progressive socialist.” When Castro attacked Batista in 1953, the Cuban Communist Party actually accused Castro of “Putchism,” another one of the surreal words invented by Marxists which onlinedictionary.com defines as "a method of revolution or overthrow involving secret planning."

Batista had won during a competitive election in 1940, although he later effectively usurped power. Nevertheless, after his first term as President, Batista left office peacefully. Unlike Castro, who came from an affluent upper-class family, Batista grew up in poverty. He worked in the sugar cane fields, on railroads, and in the hard labor that the poor must do to survive.

Fulgencio Batista was part black, part Chinese, part American Indian, and part European. Unlike Castro, Batista genuinely was a “man of the people,” and his rise to power — from a sergeant in the Cuban army to leader of his nation — reflected that connection with ordinary people. When he was elected in 1940 with about 60 percent of the vote, he was the first non-white Cuban to win that office (the Barack Obama of his nation).

Cuba before Castro is uniformly depicted by the establishment media as horrific. The reality is dramatically different. While Batista and others ruled Cuba, the nation flourished. (This is in spite of the socialist policies of Batista, not because of those policies.) How well off was pre-Castro Cuba?

The Cuban peso had the same value as the U.S. dollar. There were 101 privately owned newspapers. Cuba had one radio per five Cubans and one television set per 28 Cubans. One out of every 40 Cubans owned a car, and one out of every 38 owned a telephone. These were among the best rates of ownership in the world. The infrastructure of Cuba — highways, ports, etc. — was considered by the U.S. Commerce Department to be the best in Latin America.

How well was labor compensated? The average Cuban industrial worker earned $6 a day in 1958. Although that figure sounds low to us in our hyper-inflated world, that wage level can be understood only in comparison with nations’ average daily industrial compensation at the time: Sweden ($8.10), Switzerland ($8.00), New Zealand ($6.72), Denmark ($6.46), and Norway ($6.10.) Cuba also had the seventh-highest level of compensation for agricultural workers in the world, behind only Canada, America, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, and Norway. Unemployment in Cuba was the lowest in Latin America.  Even the leader of the Cuban Communist Party until 1962, Anibal Escalante, said, “Cuba is one of the countries [in Latin America] in which the standard of living of the masses was particularly high.”

The per capita income was the third-highest in Latin America, after Argentina and Venezuela. Ginsburg’s 1959 Atlas of the World Economy placed Cuba at 22nd out of the 122 nations surveyed. Income surpassed that of Spain and Portugal and was comparable to that of Italy.

The Cuban public educational system received a higher percentage of the government’s budget than any other Latin American nation, with Costa Rica, a famously peaceful and orderly nation, second. Cuba also had 900 private schools and three private universities. Rural education received special attention and was supplemented by a mobile library system. According to the UN report of 1953, the literacy rate in Cuba was 82 percent, higher than in any other Latin American nation except Argentina and Costa Rica.

How healthy were Cubans before Castro? They ate quite well. Per capita consumption of meat was 65 pounds per year, exceeded only by England, Australia, and Denmark. Caloric intake was the third-highest in Latin America, after Argentina and Uruguay. The nation had the third-lowest mortality rate in the world — lower, in fact, than America or Canada. The infant mortality rate was 3.76 per thousand, while next in line in Latin America was Argentina at 6.11 and Venezuela at 6.56. In fact, the infant mortality rate in Cuba was lower than in France, Italy, Belgium, or Austria. Only Argentina had more doctors per citizen than Cuba. Life expectancy was significantly higher than in Latin America in general.

Cuba was doing well, but it was doing well in spite of the “progressive” policies of Batista, not because of Batista. What this nation needed was a return to free markets, the end of incessant government intervention on the side of labor, and public expenditures (which were often inefficient) to improve education and health. What Cuba did not need was a collectivist totalitarian such as Castro.

In the Never-Never land invented by Marxists which divides mankind into “progressives” and “reactionaries,” where was Castro? In his youth, Castro owned the complete works of Benito Mussolini. When he was tried in Cuban courts, his oral argument was virtually modeled on Hitler’s “History will absolve me” speech. When Francisco Franco died, after Castro had been in power over 15 years, Castro ordered a day of respect for the Spanish dictator.

Fidel Castro believes in power. The Cuban people have suffered grievously during the last 50 years. From 1959 to 1994, more than one million Cubans have left their island home for anywhere else. The horrors of Castro’s Gulag are as awful as anything in the ghastly history of modern totalitarianism. This nation that was once among the most affluent in the Western Hemisphere or, indeed, the world, now languishes in poverty and experiences persistent shortages of even the most basic items such as milk, soap, and clothing. Rationing is the norm.

The incidental byproducts of Castro’s Cuba are found in baseball players and other athletes who abandon their communist prison as soon as they can, in the grinding poverty of those who cannot leave, and in those desperate enough to hide in the landing gear of an airliner traveling across the Atlantic Ocean from Havana to Madrid.

by Bruce Walker

Source: New American

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Women’s History Month and Castro’s Female Victims

1994: Cuban women fleeing Castro's  “improvement of status” and “good life”.

When Barbara Walters sat quivering alongside Fidel Castro in 1977 cooing: “Fidel Castro has brought very high literacy and great health-care to his country. His personal magnetism is powerful.” dozens of Cuban suffragettes suffered in torture chambers within walking distance of the hyperventilating Ms. Walters.

“They started by beating us with twisted coils of electric cable,” recalls former political prisoner Ezperanza Pena from exile today. “I remember Teresita on the ground with all her lower ribs broken. Gladys had both her arms broken. Doris had her face cut up so badly from the beatings that when she tried to drink, water would pour out of her lacerated cheeks.”

“On Mother’s Day they allowed family visits,” recalls Manuela Calvo from exile today. “But as our mothers and sons and daughters were watching, we were beaten with rubber hoses and high-pressure hoses were turned on us, knocking all of us unto the ground floor and rolling us around as the guards laughed and our loved-ones screamed helplessly.”

“When female guards couldn’t handle us, male guards were called in for more brutal beatings. I saw teen-aged girls beaten savagely with their bones broken their mouths bleeding,” recalls Polita Grau in Unvanquished: Cuba's Resistance to Fidel Castro

Ok, I apologize for baiting feminist readers during this Women’s History Month “with the term “suffragette.” In fact, voting was merely one of the rights these heroic Cuban ladies sought. Castro’s Stalinist regime jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s own, murdered more political prisoners in its first three years in power than Hitler’s murdered in its first six, and abolished private property. And yes, Castro also outlawed voting. So you’ll please excuse these Cuban ladies if they regard the “struggles” of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as a trifle overblown.

I also apologize for singling out Barbara Walters. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell also had praise for the tryant: “Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly–even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!”

Back in 1996 Fidel Castro was hosted by Mort Zuckerman at his Fifth Avenue pad. A throng of Beltway glitterati, including Mike Wallace, Peter Jennings, Tina Brown, Bernard Shaw, Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer all jostled for a photo-op and stood in line for Castro’s autograph. But Diane Sawyer was so overcome in the mass-murderer’s presence that she lost control, rushing up, breaking into that toothy smile of hers, wrapping her arms around Castro and smooching the Stalinist torturer on his bearded cheek.

“You people are the cream of the crop!” beamed the Stalinist/terrorist to the smiling throng he’d come within a hair of nuking in 1962.

“Hear, hear!” chirped the delighted guests, while tinkling their wine glasses in honor of the smirking agent of their near vaporization.

We’re smack in the middle of “Women’s History Month.” So let’s chew on this: Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s regime jailed 35,150 Cuban women for political crimes, a totalitarian horror utterly unknown–not only in Cuba–but in the Western Hemisphere until the regime so “magnetic” to Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell and Diane Sawyer came into power. Some of these Cuban ladies suffered twice as long in Castro’s Gulag as Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered in Stalin’s.

Their prison conditions were described by former political prisoner Maritza Lugo: “The punishment cells measure 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. The toilet consists of an 8 inch hole in the ground through which cockroaches and rats enter, especially in cool temperatures the rat come inside to seek the warmth of our bodies and we were often bitten. The suicide rate among women prisoners was very high.”

Many of these heroic ladies (Ana Rodriguez, Miriam Ortega, Georgina Cid, Caridad Roque, Mercedes Pena, Aída Díaz Morejón, Ana Lázara Rodríguez, Ágata Villarquide, Alicia del Busto, Ileana Curra) live in the U.S. today. But no producer for Oprah or Joy Behar or Katie Couric, none from the Lifetime or Oxygen TV–much less the History Channel, has ever called them. No writer for Cosmo or Glamour or Redbook or Vogue has bothered either.

But you’ve certainly seen their torturer hailed by “Feminist” reporters.

Upon the death of Raul Castro’s wife Vilma Espin in 2006, the Washington Post gushed that: “She was a champion of women’s rights and greatly improved the status of women in Cuba, a society known for its history of machismo.” Actually, in 1958 Cuba had more female college graduates as a percentage of population than the U.S.

This Castroite “improvement of status” and “good life” for Cuban women also somehow tripled Cuban women’s pre-revolution suicide rate, making Cuban women the most suicidal on earth. This according to a 1998 study by scholar Maida Donate-Armada that uses some of the Cuban regime’s own figures.

On Christmas Eve of 1961 a Cuban woman named Juana Diaz spat in the face of the executioners who were binding and gagging her. Castro’s Russian-trained secret police had found her guilty of feeding and hiding “bandits” (Cubans who took up arms to fight the Stalinist theft of their land to build Soviet –style Kolkhozes.) When the blast from Castroite firing squad demolished her face and torso, Juana was six months pregnant. These Taliban-like atrocities against women were perpetrated by a regime gushed over by Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell, Diane Sawyer, Medea Benjamin, Maxine Waters and so many other “feminists.”

Thousands upon thousands of Cuban women have drowned, died of thirst or have been eaten alive by sharks attempting to flee the Washington Post’s dutifully transcribed “improvement of status.” This from a nation formerly richer than half the nations of Europe and deluged by immigrants from same.

By Humberto Fontova

From: FrontPage Magazine

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