One of Fidel Castro's sons carried on an eight-month flirtation over the Internet with a person he believed was a Colombian woman. Surprise! The woman was actually a Miami man.
The trickster said the prank, broadcast on a Miami TV station, showed it's possible to get around Cuba's security.
"Guess where I am and I will make love to you without stopping," Antonio Castro Soto del Valle, Fidel's son and physician for the Cuban national baseball team, reportedly wrote "Claudia" during a January trip to Russia with his uncle Raul.
But "Claudia" turned out to be Luis Dominguez, a Cuban-born Miamian who unveiled the sting on Americateve TV Channel 41 in Miami, saying it was designed to "shatter the myth of an impenetrable" security system.
"Claudia's" cyber-boyfriend never revealed any state secrets and made no mention of Fidel during their more than 20 Internet chats. But he sent her what he said were his phone number and home address in Havana, wrote that he had no bodyguards and gave advance notice of a trip to Mexico — all breaches of the tight secrecy that has always surrounded Fidel Castro's family life.
And when rumors swept Miami in mid-January that Fidel Castro had died, Dominguez said, he assured Americateve that the rumors were likely false because Antonio was keeping up his regular chats with his cyber-girlfriend.
The man who used the Canada-based e-mail address "tonycsport@yahoo.ca" also provided "Claudia" with details of a life far richer than the grind of the average Cuban – weekends in Varadero beach, Lacoste shirts and belt buckles, a personal Apple computer and a BlackBerry with Internet access, Dominguez's files showed.
"While everyday Cubans were banned from using the Internet cafes in Havana hotels, this guy had a BlackBerry and unlimited access to the Web," said Dominguez, 46, a security company employee who runs a website featuring reports on Cuba's armed forces and security services – Cubaaldescubierto.com.
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