Guillermo Hernández-Cartaya

Cuban banker and criminal¹

Guillermo Hernández-Cartaya was a Cuban banker born sometime in 1932 (the New York Times described him in 1977 as in his "mid-fifties"); he spent 20 years as a banker in Cuba.²

From Wikipedia’s article on Guillermo Hernández-Cartaya (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born 1932.¹

Companies

World FinanceFounder⁶

Career

Occupation: banker.⁴

Date not recordedFounded World Finance³

Personal life

CitizenshipUnited States⁵

Legal issues and controversies

Cartaya and his former aide Salvador Aldereguia-Ors were acquitted in 1978 of a 1978 indictment charging them with conspiring to use a false passport to help Hernandez Cartaya escape from Ajman in the United Arab Emirates. Cartaya's passport had been confiscated in an attempt by the Ajmani to have him repay the more than 12 million missing $USD.[2]

He, Francisco J. Fernandez, and Vicente Carrodeguas were only ever convicted of tax evasion (Henry Heitman, Jr., who was the only defendant to testify, was acquitted); they had not reported a number of large bonuses as salary. An appeal to the Supreme Court was denied.

After serving one year in prison, Cartaya was released on 6 June 1987.[3] Kwitny records that there were rumors that Cartaya retired to Galveston, Texas.

Castro connection

There were multiple reports linking Cartaya with Fidel Castro. His aide Aldereguia-Ors was found by the FBI on his arrest on charges of preparing Cartaya a fake passport (in Miami International Airport en route to Kingston, Jamaica) to possess in his briefcase a letter 'from a Cuban secret police agent' addressed to a spy named "Samuel". Ors admitted fighting with Castro, and to helping Rebel Army friends find jobs at WFC, but he denied being the Cuban spy Samuel, and claimed the letter & his planned meetings with Cuban officials referred to 'an effort to bring refugees out of Cuba to the United States'. FBI agents would testify in court that besides the letter, the briefcase contained 'operational instructions from a foreign country'.

Rep. Lester L. Wolff stated on 60 Minutes that Cartaya's WFC arranged for Castro a 100 million USD loan to Colombia (the Colombian officials agreeing to aid cocaine smuggling).

The Metro Public Safety Department's Organized Crime Bureau earlier reported an informant's claim that Castro was an initial investor in WFC.