Cuban troops shot and killed four people, one of whom was a U.S. citizen, on a Florida-registered speedboat that was attempting to enter Cuban territorial waters and “invade” the island on Wednesday, authorities said.
Two of the 10 people on the speedboat were American, a U.S. official told CNN on Thursday. A second person was injured and is currently being treated in Cuba, officials said.
The shootout came amid heightened tensions between Cuba and the United States, with both countries launching investigations into the incident.
As more details continue to emerge about this deadly shooting, here’s what we know so far.
Cuba’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that Cuban border guards approached the boat after it entered territorial waters in Falcon’s Cay, Villa Clara state, just over 100 miles from Florida.
The statement said passengers on the boat opened fire on the Cuban patrol boat, injuring the captain, and Cuban forces returned fire.
Four people on the high-speed boat were killed and six others were injured. The survivors have been detained and are receiving treatment, the statement added.
The department later said the passengers were Cuban nationals living in the United States armed with assault rifles, handguns and Molotov cocktails and intended to “infiltrate for terrorist purposes.”
In addition, another person said to have been sent by the United States to facilitate the operation was arrested and later confessed, the ministry said. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
According to Cuban authorities, the vessel is registered in the United States as FL7726SH and is a 24-foot power boat built in 1981, according to maritime database records.
The location of the shootout is near Falcon’s Cay, which is known for its shallow waters, sandbars, and beaches. Historically, it was a route for Cuban immigrants attempting the perilous journey to Florida.
The boat used in the shootout was reported stolen Wednesday night in the Florida Keys, according to a sheriff’s report obtained Thursday by CNN.
The owner told sheriff’s deputies that he noticed the boat missing Wednesday morning and suspected that Hector Correa, a Cuban man he had hired to do the tile work, had “taken it to go fishing” without permission. The boat owner told deputies he believed Correa had taken the boat because Correa had tried to repair two different boats with little success and his truck was parked next to the pier.
It wasn’t until reporters called the owner and asked about the boat’s involvement in the shootout that they realized where Correa had taken the boat. Witnesses later told law enforcement that they had seen a man in a white truck leave the boat the night before. The truck belonged to Correa, according to a sheriff’s report.
On Thursday afternoon, Cuban officials announced that Correa was one of four people killed in the incident.
In addition to the two people on the speedboat, one person on the speedboat had a K-1 visa (fiancée) and the other person may be a lawful permanent resident of the United States, but this has not yet been confirmed, according to U.S. officials who spoke to CNN.
Two of the survivors were previously wanted by Cuba on terrorism charges, the interior ministry said.
One of them appears to have previously shared what appears to be a declaration of an upcoming attack. In a Facebook post, an individual named Amijail Sánchez González reposted a document signed on January 31 by four opposition groups pledging to take “imminent” and “decisive” action.
Earlier this month, the same person posted a video in which he noted that he was taking blood thinners and said that if he was injured in an action, he would likely die.
On Thursday, Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said Cuba was “still waiting for a response to the request for information regarding the ‘two persons’ and other individuals and entities included in the list.”
Michael J. Bustamante, a Cuban studies professor at the University of Miami, told CNN that the groups allegedly involved in the attack “may be well-known in parts of the Cuban diaspora/exile internet, but they are fringe groups that are unlikely to have direct ties to mainstream Cuban-American political leadership.”
Although Wednesday’s incident did not appear to be carefully planned, Bustamante said it was “harkening back to the long history of covert organizing and militancy among Cuban exiles dating back to the 1960s and ’70s, with or without U.S. support, and sometimes in open defiance of the U.S. government.”
“One of the questions will be whether U.S. officials (such as the FBI) were aware of this organization and its activities,” he added.
The Cuban government also identified as important values Pavel Aling Peña, a writer from Camaguey who recently posted a video on Instagram about annexationism and defending national sovereignty. Another man, Conrado Galindo Saliol, was also confirmed to have been on the boat.
Galindo’s son, Norgue Evelio Galindo, was imprisoned in Cuba for participating in anti-government demonstrations on July 11, 2021, and was released in February 2024, according to Galindo’s Facebook post.
“I’m proud of what my dad did,” Noge told CNN on Thursday. “I didn’t expect anything less from him.”
“I didn’t know what he was doing, but I always knew that if that opportunity came along, he wasn’t going to pass it up,” Norge added. Now living in Mexico, he said he told his family back home in Cuba and his father’s wife in the United States about his father’s actions.
“Everyone is confused because we never expected something like this to happen,” he said, noting that his father hasn’t been back to Cuba in 10 years.
In 2024, CNN also interviewed Galindo about his son’s incarceration. Galindo’s cousin told CNN on Thursday that Galindo had also previously been imprisoned for “disagreeing with that disgusting government and system.”
“What I know about him is that he lives in Florida, and like almost every Cuban who immigrated to this great country, we do not agree with our country, with the Cuban dictatorship, with the dictatorship that has been in power for 67 years and oppressed its people, with Cuba descended into misery and destruction,” Leonardo Galindo said.
“But I never imagined that he and other compatriots would go on a trip to Cuba,” the cousin added.
Meanwhile, Cuba’s Republican Party said in a statement that one of its members was among those killed, but distanced itself from the attack, saying it was not aware of its intentions. CNN has reached out to the party for comment.
Helen Yaffe, professor of Latin American political economy and Cuba expert at the University of Glasgow, said that while some anti-government Cuban exiles living in the United States may hail the groups allegedly involved in Wednesday’s attack as “heroes and martyrs,” they are little known or supported in Cuba.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the incident “highly unusual” and said there were no US government officials on board the speedboat and it was not participating in any official operation.
“We’re going to find out exactly what happened here and respond accordingly,” said Rubio, who was in the region on an official visit to St. Kitts and Nevis.
Rubio added that the U.S. Embassy in Havana, the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the incident, stressing that authorities need to confirm the facts before taking any action.
At a press conference in Havana on Thursday, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister said the United States had “demonstrated a willingness to cooperate” in the incident.
Meanwhile, Florida officials, including Attorney General James Usmayer and Republican Reps. Carlos A. Jimenez and Rick Scott, called for accountability and a thorough investigation into the use of deadly force against individuals aboard a U.S.-flagged vessel.
The incident comes amid rising tensions between Havana and the United States, which has imposed sanctions and restrictions on oil shipments from Venezuela, Cuba’s main supplier. Following the U.S. arrest of Venezuelan leader and Cuban ally Nicolás Maduro in January (in an operation that killed 32 Cuban personnel guarding Maduro), the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has turned its sights on Cuba, blocking all oil shipments to the country and discussing regime change.
The blockade has collapsed Cuba’s economy, sending the Caribbean nation through its worst period of economic uncertainty in decades and prompting the United Nations to warn of a possible humanitarian “collapse.”
The United States announced Wednesday it would ease the embargo slightly and grant licenses to private Cuban companies seeking to resell oil from Venezuela.
In 2022, the Interior Ministry in Havana announced that Cuba had seized 13 American speedboats with 23 crew members on board, accusing them of “running a human trafficking operation” to take people from the island to the United States.
The shooting occurred just one day after the 30th anniversary of the Cuban military shooting down two planes belonging to the Cuban-American humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue in waters north of Havana. Four people died in this incident.
Jose Basurto, leader of Brothers to the Rescue and one of the few survivors of the 1996 shootout, told CNN that he did not know any of the men allegedly involved in Wednesday’s attack and did not know about their organization.
Earlier this month, President Trump extended a Clinton-era emergency measure enacted after the Cuban plane was shot down, allowing U.S. authorities to board ships potentially bound for Cuba.
CNN’s Mauricio Torres, Hila Humayun, Rex Harvey, German Padinger, Jack Guy, Max Saltman, Patrick Oppmann and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
