The men arrived in Cuban waters aboard a speedboat that apparently had been stolen the night before in the Florida Keys.
The Cuban government said 10 Cubans left from the United States on a Florida-registered vessel armed with assault rifles, handguns, improvised explosive devices, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights and camouflage uniforms. Their goal when they arrived on Wednesday was, the government said: “to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes.”
They opened fire on the Cuban Coast Guard, the government claimed. Four of the men died and six more were wounded in the gunfight.
A day later, few details have emerged about the deadly shootout, raising questions about who the men were and how and why they sailed to Cuba’s shores. Were they freelance militants with a poorly laid out plan? Part of a carefully set trap by the Cuban government at a time of increased tensions with the United States?
The episode was the latest in a decades-long often bellicose history between Cuba’s government and militant exiles determined to take it down. For years, Cuban exiles have tried to infiltrate Cuba, planted bombs in Havana and even plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro.
One of the survivors was initially erroneously reported to be Roberto Azcorra Consuegra, a 31-year-old activist who fled Cuba in 2017 and was home in Miami this week, fielding calls from reporters.
The inclusion of Mr. Azcorra’s name among the list of the detained raised questions about what the Cuban government knew about the plot. Having his name even though he was not on the boat suggested that government agents could have known about the operation in advance, experts said.
In 1996, after the Cuban government shot down two planes belonging to the exile organization Brothers to the Rescue, it quickly emerged that a Cuban intelligence agent had infiltrated the organization and knew about the planned attack.
“Supposedly, I am jailed, detained and injured,” Mr. Azcorra said in an interview Wednesday night. On Thursday, deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernández de Cossio posted a statement admitting the error.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel took to social media to reaffirm the Cuba’s sovereignty. “Cuba will defend itself with determination and firmness against any terrorist and mercenary aggression that seeks to affect its sovereignty and national stability,” he said.
“Today we know of plans for terrorist acts that are being supported, financed, and prepared in the United States to attack Cuba at a time like this, and we will provide the information and make the necessary denunciation in due course,” Mr. Díaz-Canel said earlier this month.
Mr. Azcorra described himself as an activist determined to topple the 67-year-old communist government by methods that went beyond picket signs and slogans, but said he could not discuss it further without first getting a lawyer. He would not say whether he knew the men, but acknowledged that the Cuban government must have had his name because they expected him to be on board the doomed vessel.
Mr. Azcorra said that the inclusion of his name was “not a mistake.”
“They know exactly who I am,” he said. “They either confused me with someone else, or they thought I was going to be there.”
Mr. Azcorra said he was from Cienfuegos, a city in central Cuba, and had to leave Cuba because of his anti-government activities and that the authorities were on to him. The deputy foreign minister said he was known for a “history of violent actions.”
Cuban authorities identified the other survivors aboard the Florida-registered speedboat as Amijail Sánchez González, Leordan Cruz Gómez, Conrado Galindo Sariol, José Manuel Rodríguez Castelló, Roberto Álvarez Ávila and Christian Acosta Guevara. Another man, Duniel Hernández Santos, arrived in Cuba in advance of the confrontation, the government said.
Four more men died. They have been identified as Pavel Alling Peña, Michel Ortega Casanova, Héctor Cruz Correa and Ledián Padrón Guevara.
At least two of the men, including one who died, were U.S. citizens, one was on a fiancé visa, and the others were believed to be legal permanent residents, according to a U.S. official.
“They are brave men,” Mr. Azcorra said.
Public records indicate that most of the men appear to have lived in Florida, though Mr. Acosta is identified as residing in Texas.
U.S. court records show some of the men had committed minor traffic or vehicle-related offenses. Cuban officials have said several of the men had criminal histories but did not release documentation to support those claims.
One of the men who died, Mr. Ortega, was a truck driver who had lived in the United States for a long time, according to his brother-in-law.
A 1981 24-foot boat they traveled on was reported stolen Wednesday out of Big Pine Key, in the Lower Florida Keys, according to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. On Thursday, sheriff’s deputies and agents from the Department of Homeland Security were at the property where the boat owner kept the vessel.
The owner told the police he first noticed the boat missing on Wednesday morning, and saw a white Chevy truck belonging to one of his employees, a tile worker, parked at the property, according to the police report. He assumed his employee had taken the boat without permission. The owner went back later in the day after news reports emerged with the boat’s registration number and went to the police.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office identified the owner of the truck as Héctor Cruz Correa, 42, and named him a “suspect” in the theft of the boat. The Cuban authorities later named Mr. Cruz Correa, who has two children in Cuba, as one of the men who died.
Mr. Galindo, 58, a delivery van driver, was among those injured, according to the Cuban government. According to his wife, Ana Seguí, he left his home in Miami around noon on Sunday and never returned.
“He told me he was going to work,” she said.
When he did not come back, she tried calling but his phone seemed to be turned off. Then, on Wednesday, she heard the Cuban government name her husband as one of the men on the boat who had been captured.
Ms. Seguí said she did not recognize the names of the others. Mr. Galindo was open about his political views against the Cuban regime, she said.
“He’s always had his ideals,” she said.
Mr. Galindo, who is from Camagüey, left Cuba in 2016 after being imprisoned on the island for eight years, she said. He never went back.
Standing on the front stoop of their modest home in Miami, Ms. Seguí looked exhausted and distraught. She said she could not know if the Cuban government’s account was true and was waiting to learn more. No U.S. authorities have come to see her, she added.
“I don’t know how this came about,” she said, adding that Mr. Galindo did not own weapons or have an interest in them. “Guns, what guns?” she said.
Her husband had at least twice been a guest on a radio program called “Voices that Inspire” on the U.S.-financed Radio Martí. Mr. Galindo was introduced as a former political prisoner who had served time with a well-known activist, Jorge Luis García Pérez, known as Antúnez, who interviewed him on the show. Mr. Galindo told Mr. García that only clandestine activities would work to topple the government.
Mr. Sánchez González, another person the Cuban government said had been detained, has been accused in the past of inciting violence in Cuba from Florida, according to news reports at the time. In 2022, Cuban authorities said a detainee in Cuba had purportedly confessed to his crimes, saying Mr. Sánchez reached out to him on social media and put him up to it, according to a news report.
In a second case two years later, a woman was accused of planning to throw a Molotov cocktail at a Ministry of Interior base, because, the government said, Mr. Sánchez incited her, according to a report in Diario de Cuba.
Mr. Sánchez’s Facebook includes various videos in which a person claims to represent a group called the “People’s Self Defense.”
“Let’s fight for Cuba,” the man in the video says.
Both Mr. Sánchez and Mr. Cruz Gómez were wanted in Cuba, and their names had been provided to U.S. authorities in 2023 and 2025, yet they “enjoyed impunity,” the deputy foreign minister said.
Marcell Felipe, a prominent leader in the Cuban exile community in Miami, said the boat gunfight reminded him of prior episodes in which the Cuban government accused Miami exiles of plotting terrorism on the island.
“What I do know is that it’s not the first time that the Cuban regime does an operation orchestrated by Cuban intelligence,” Mr. Felipe said.
“These operations are never done exclusively by agents of the regime, they are done by agents of the regime who recruit willing participants and send them to their deaths,” he said.
Wednesday’s episode came amid an extraordinarily tense moment between the two nations. The Trump administration has cut off fuel imports to Cuba, with the aim of crippling the government.
The country is going through its worst economic crisis in decades.
The United States has shown a “willingness” to help Cuba clarify the matter, Mr. Fernández de Cossio, the deputy foreign minister, said on Thursday.
“An investigation is underway to clarify the facts with the utmost rigor,” he said. “Cuba has a duty and responsibility to protect its territorial waters.”
Reporting was contributed by David C. Adams, Valerie Boey Ramsey, Michael Crowley, Genevieve Glatsky, Adam Goldman, Elisabeth Parker and Alex Rickert. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
Frances Robles is a Times reporter covering Latin America and the Caribbean. She has reported on the region for more than 25 years.
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