{"id":195834,"date":"2019-04-01T15:27:54","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T19:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=195834"},"modified":"2019-04-01T15:33:18","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T19:33:18","slug":"cubans-in-booking-money-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba-usa\/cubans-in-booking-money-in-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubans in Booking: money in limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, Cuban entrepreneur Denisse Rond\u00f3n started noticing a strange delay in the mechanism to receive the profits from the rental of her apartment in Havana, registered in the <\/span>Booking<\/span><\/a> tourist accommodation platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was enough to investigate on the Internet to discover why the money did not reach her bank account. It had been discovered that the Argentine intermediary company that processes her payments was part of a money laundering and drug trafficking network.<\/span><\/p>\n

The unforeseen event affects both Denisse and an unknown number of Cubans out of the approximately 1,000 owners of private accommodations in Cuba that are managed through Booking<\/strong><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The income of those who used the services of <\/span>SmileWallet<\/span><\/a> for Booking<\/strong><\/em> clients\u2019 virtual payments and bank transactions in dollars are in limbo.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I only lost 400 dollars, but a lot of people have lost 2,000 or 3,000 dollars or more,” said Denisse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thousands of dollars in transfers remained in an inaccessible virtual space and nobody is offering Cubans a solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

“In the middle of all this, we\u2019re involved in a story of international trafficking, paying the consequences in such a delicate issue with which we have nothing to do,” lamented the Cuban entrepreneur.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cubans who could find a way to be in Booking did so despite the costly access to the Internet and other technological difficulties in Cuba. But apparently Booking did not respond with the same enthusiasm or were prepared for the singularities of the Cuban context, especially in the matter of payments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abandoned to their fate, disoriented, the Cuban victims of the scam are organizing in social forums and created an email (afectadosmilewallet@gmail.com) to share information.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although they are not the only victims of this international scam, the exceptional characteristics of the conditions in which Cuban entrepreneurs compete in the virtual world, make them particularly vulnerable to this and other similar situations, with no apparent solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Operation Goldpharma <\/strong><\/p>\n

The scandal came to light in mid-March, based on a joint operation between the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI) of Argentina. According to local sources from both countries, the director and founder of Smilewallet, Sergio Ferrari, created the company to be able to “move funds between different countries, through the use of money transfer mechanisms.”<\/span><\/p>\n