Money matters

A Russian bank has been given the legal go-ahead in Moscow to try to recover at least some of the estimated USD26 billion in debt the Castro regime still owes the old Soviet Union.

The International Investment Bank, which was once the main global bank of what used to be known as the Soviet Empire, says it is owed about USD300 million by the Cubans – a debt that goes back to the 1970s.

But as this report confirms, the likelihood of forcing Havana to do the right thing and pay up are, well, pretty slim.

“The Cuban Central Bank is not easy to pin down,” the report says. “It has no website and few telephones. It has been avoiding contact with the International Investment Bank for the last several years and has no representatives [in Moscow].”

For the record, the Castro brothers are Russia’s largest foreign debtor.