Ten-year sentence for a Cuban?
No.
Really.
A ten-year jail sentence for a Cuban?
I don’t mean a Cuban citizen. US Citizen [ya know, them free ones]. Cuban cigar.
This can’t possibly be true. Can it?
Sounds like a hoax, an urban legend. But the document Cuban Cigar Update issued two weeks ago (Sep 30) — on the Department of the Treasury webserver — does seem to say this. And it even provides a phone number and fax number, for us to report on any offenders we might know of.
The Regulations prohibit persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States from purchasing, transporting, importing, or otherwise dealing in or engaging in any transactions with respect to any merchandise outside the United States if such merchandise (1) is of Cuban origin; or (2) is or 2 has been located in or transported from or through Cuba; or (3) is made or derived in whole or in part of any article which is the growth, produce or manufacture of Cuba.
[...]
Criminal penalties for violation of the Regulations range up to $1,000,000 in fines for corporations, $250,000 for individuals and up to 10 years in prison.
It does say it applies to “persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” … don’t know what that means. Are US citizens / permanent residents subject to US jurisdiction wherever they are? So an American who smokes marijuana in Amsterdam (where it’s legal) could theoretically be thrown in jail for it on his return home, if someone happens to catch him? Or does “subject to the jurisdiction of” mean something more specific here? (E.g. diplomats stationed abroad?)
I must be misunderstanding/overinterpreting this.
October 14th, 2004 at 7:07 pm
This can’t be true. The jurisdiction has to mean on US soil. If that’s not the case, A US citizen could be imprisoned for eating Danish candy in Germany, since it most likely contains sugar imported from Cuba! Then again, the US is not your typical “everything makes sense” country… heck, their president did not even need majority vote in last elections to become a president.
October 15th, 2004 at 12:00 am
Well of course it can’t be true. That’s obvious; it’s common sense.
But evidently the US “Office of Foreign Assets Control” is pleasantly unfettered by such inhibiting factors as common sense. The same document contains this passage right before the text I quoted:
This seems to state clearly (“in a third country for personal use outside the United States”) that it applies to what US citizens do outside of the US, not just on US soil.
Wait a minute; isn’t Bacardi Cuban? It started there, but apparently it moved to Puerto Rico. I wonder which forced it to do that: Fidel Castro’s silly laws, or John F. Kennedy’s silly laws? :)
But anyway, like most embarrassing political oddities, the Cuba embargo probably won’t go out with a bang, but with a quiet little fizz.
October 21st, 2004 at 5:29 pm
According to recent conversations I have had with a couple Cuban people I know, it is legal at least to import, from what I recall, 7 Cuban cigars at a time to the U.S. Any more than that and it can be confiscated…
DonŽt quite know why I remembered this since I have absolutely no interest in smoking, but just thought it was odd and so it stuck in my brain…