MIAMI — A day before Amijail Sánchez González entered Cuban waters on a Florida-registered speedboat, his family says, he called his elderly parents on the island to tell them he was heading their way.
In an hour-long phone call, they urged their son not to make the trip, his brother told The Washington Post on Thursday.
Sánchez González, a 47-year-old tree trimmer in Miami who has been critical of Cuba’s communist government on social media, was wanted by Havana on accusations of promoting terrorism. In late 2024, his brother said, authorities detained their parents, both of whom are fighting cancer, and held them for months to pressure him to return to the island and turn himself in.
But he had become obsessed with his mission to “liberate Cuba,” Edisbel Sánchez González said. He wanted to show the world “an act of courage.”
On Wednesday morning, Cuban authorities allege, Amijail Sánchez González and nine other Cuban nationals based in the United States attempted to infiltrate the country “for terrorist purposes.” At least two of the men were U.S. citizens, a U.S. official told The Post.
As a Cuban border patrol vessel approached, the Cuban Interior Ministry said, the men on the speedboat opened fire, injuring its commander. Cuban forces returned fire, the ministry said, killing four men aboard the speedboat and wounding six.
Authorities said they seized weapons and equipment including assault rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, molotov cocktails, night vision equipment, bulletproof vests, combat rations, communication equipment and “a large number of insignia from counterrevolutionary terrorist organizations.”
Sánchez González was detained with the five other survivors, authorities said, and his brother confirmed he was on the boat and was wounded in the confrontation.
Tensions between Washington and Havana, longtime adversaries, have been escalating for weeks. President Donald Trump has increased economic sanctions and vowed to bring “change” to the island.
In September, the U.S. military began blowing up boats in the Caribbean that it alleged were smuggling drugs from Venezuela to the United States. During the military raid last month to capture Cuban ally Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s socialist president, U.S. forces killed 32 Cuban personnel who provided security for him in exchange for Venezuelan oil.
Trump, who has long courted more radical elements in South Florida’s Cuban American community, then declared the communist regime’s “policies, practices and actions” an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security. He ordered an effective naval blockade on shipments of oil to the island and threatened to impose tariffs on countries that violated it, worsening Cuba’s years-long economic crisis.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canal said Thursday that his country “does not attack, nor threaten,” but will “defend itself with determination and firmness against any terrorist and mercenary aggression that seeks to affect its sovereignty and national stability.”
The Cuban coast guard informed the U.S. Coast Guard of the speedboat incident Wednesday morning. U.S. officials say they’re investigating.
At least one of the dead crew members and one of the survivors are U.S. citizens, the U.S. official said. Another had a K-1 visa for foreign nationals engaged to marry U.S. citizens. Others might be legal permanent residents, the official said.
The men on the speedboat were not sophisticated mercenaries, relatives said Thursday, but poorly trained activists who wanted to send a message. They’re members of Autodefensa del Pueblo (People’s Self-Defense), relatives said, a loosely coordinated organization known for asking people in Cuba to place anti-government signs on walls there and send photos to be posted on social media.
Kiki Naranjo said he founded ADP with Sánchez González about five years ago with “clandestine” support from like-minded individuals on the island. The group has no financial backing or association with any government, Naranjo said.
Naranjo, who lives in Ohio, said he hadn’t heard from his friend in about a year and was unaware of any plans for a trip to Cuba, but he understood why the men would want to make the journey. “We all had that desire,” he said, “to see our country free.”
Sánchez González posted a video to his 94 Instagram followers two weeks ago of another man speaking about the need to “fight for Cuba.”
“The time has come to do what has to be done,” the man says. “I want to die the way real men die. To all of the men who are willing to die, I want to know … I want them to play their part when the time comes.”
Sánchez González, who has lived in the United States since 2015, appears to have been on the Cuban government’s radar for years. Havana included him on a list sent to the U.N. Security Council in 2023 of people it accused of the “promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of terrorist acts in Cuba or in other countries.”
Sánchez González pleaded guilty in Miami-Dade County in 2021 to aggravated battery against a law enforcement officer. But his brother said he was not trained to shoot and had never before taken part in an operation such as the speedboat trip. His group, he said, had “never harmed anyone.”
Others whose relatives were named by the Cuban government in Wednesday’s confrontation said they had no idea they were involved in an organization that would plan such a mission.
Maria de Jesus Galindo, the 22-year-old daughter of alleged crew member Conrado Galindo Sariol, said she was unaware of his involvement until the Interior Ministry identified him. She thought he had been working his usual job delivering Amazon packages to communities outside Miami.
De Jesus Galindo said she last saw her father three days earlier. She wasn’t in touch with him Wednesday. She said he had lived in the U.S. for 10 years and had not been back to Cuba since.
“It was a total surprise,” she said. “I’m in shock. I never would have expected this.”
Edisbel Sánchez González said his brother hadn’t wanted to involve him in his activism, “probably so that I wouldn’t worry.” But he knew that his group was “rustic.”
“They didn’t have anything to be able to take on an army,” he said. “My brother is not a highly educated person. He doesn’t have money.”
Now he fears how his brother might be treated in a Cuban prison.
“From the moment he left Cuba, he’s been obsessed with the idea of Cuba being free,” he said. “I had told him, ‘You’re not going to topple the government.’ But when a person has an idea, no one can change it.”
Adam Taylor contributed to this report.
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