Today, Adys Lastres Morera, a Cuban national with ties to the communist regime in Havana, was arrested following the Department of State’s termination of her lawful permanent resident (LPR) status, at my direction.

Morera is now in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Morera is the adult sister of Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, who was sanctioned earlier this month for her role as the Executive President of GAESA (Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A.). GAESA is the Cuban military-controlled financial conglomerate. While the Cuban people suffer from the collapse of Cuba’s non-functioning communist economy, GAESA functions to allow a small circle of regime elites to plunder all the remaining resources of the island, squirreling away as much as $20 billion in illicit funds away in hidden overseas bank accounts.

Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera is a Cuban military official who is the senior-most GAESA executive responsible for managing those illicit international assets – assets utilized not to improve the lives of the Cuban people, but to fuel the lavish lifestyles of Castro family members and other regime elites, and to finance overseas influence operations as part of Cuba’s long-standing ambition of a global communist revolution. While ordinary Cubans endure daily blackouts and dire food, fuel and medicine shortages, GAESA’s ill-gotten riches are not spent on repairing the collapsing power grid, stocking empty pharmacies, feeding hungry families, or providing for the most basic and essential needs of the Cuban people. Instead, they are used to enrich Havana’s elites and underwrite their ongoing campaign of espionage, subversion, and revolutionary militancy against the free peoples of this hemisphere.

For far too long, the family members of terrorist organizations, repressive anti-American regimes and other bad actors who would threaten the national security of the United States have been given a free pass to enjoy the privileges of living in the United States. Past Administrations have permitted the families of Cuban military elites, Iranian terrorists and other reprehensible organizations to enjoy lavish lifestyles in our country funded by stolen blood-money, while the people they repress at home suffer in increasingly dire circumstances.

No longer. Under President Trump, we are removing from our country the family members of IRGC terrorists and Cuban regime elites.

Let me be very clear: if you threaten the national security of the United States, there will be nowhere on this earth – much less in our country – that you and your cronies can live lavishly. We will find you, and we will hold you accountable.

To the members of the GAESA and Cuban Communist mafia, we have a simple message: the appeasement of the past is over. Return the funds you have stolen from the Cuban people, make reforms to improve the lives of ordinary Cubans, and let the Cuban people have the freedom, opportunity, and dignity that they yearn for and so richly deserve.

The U.S. Department of State extends its appreciations to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations for their continued collaboration and partnership in keeping Americans safe.