In another “not on my Bingo card moment,” two 19-year-old Cuban men have stepped forward with allegations of Russian scammers presenting them with an offer of overseas construction work. When they requested someone deport them back to Cuba, they were threatened with 30 years in prison.
Cuban American YouTuber Alaín Paparazzi Cubano gained an exclusive video of the duo and released it on August 30th. In the video, two teens are seen wearing military fatigues and are in front of signs with Cyrillic text. This would indicate that they are in Russia or Ukraine. With no clue where they were besides in a hospital, they claimed they were trapped and not allowed to leave. They claim to have been in Ukraine but were taken back to Russia after falling ill.
That same night, Juan Manuel Cao of the Miami-based América TeVé was able to confirm the authenticity of the video, as well as who the boys on tape were. Alex Vegas Díaz of central Santa Clara and Andorf Velázquez García of Havana are the two on the tape.
Given the Castro regime’s history of sending their people off to fight in wars that have nothing to do with them, it wouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if current leader Raul Castro sent them.
According to the boys, they were told they would be well paid in Ukraine to do construction, but they were only given contracts in Russian and told not to worry about it. “They told us not to worry, to just sign. So we signed, and they sent us to Ukraine. They told us that it was for construction, to fix up houses devastated by the war, trenches, rubble. It has all been a scam. They haven’t paid us, we don’t have passports, we don’t have documents, we have nothing.”
Continuing, they explained that they never made it to the front lines, and getting sick sent them both back. However, they have friends who have been sent there and others who openly say they don’t want to fight the Ukrainians. With many unwilling to fight and some getting killed, they claim the number of dead Cubans is astonishing but uncounted.
