HAVANA — Cuba’s government said late Wednesday that the 10 passengers on a boat that opened fire on its soldiers were armed Cubans living in the U.S. who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism.
The announcement came hours after Cuba said its soldiers killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speedboat that had entered Cuban waters and opened fire on the soldiers first, injuring one Cuban officer.
Cuba’s government said the majority of the 10 people on the boat “have a known history of criminal and violent activity.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told reporters earlier that he was made aware of the incident and that the U.S. is now gathering its own information to determine if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents.
“We have various different elements of the U.S. government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now,” Rubio said while at the airport in Basseterre, St. Kitts, where he was attending a regional summit with Caribbean leaders.
The Cuban government identified two of the boat passengers as Amijail Sánchez González and Leordan Enrique Cruz Gómez, who are wanted by Cuban authorities “based on their involvement in the promotion, planning, organization, financing, support or commission of actions carried out in the national territory or in other countries, in connection with acts of terrorism.”
The government said it also had arrested Duniel Hernández Santos, adding that he was “sent from the United States to guarantee the reception of the armed infiltration, who at this time has confessed to his actions.”
The Associated Press was not immediately able to independently verify that information.
Cuba’s government said it obtained the details about the passengers aboard the boat from the suspects detained following the shootout.
It identified seven of the 10 passengers, including Conrado Galindo Sariol, José Manuel Rodríguez Castelló, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara, and Roberto Álvarez Ávila.
On Thursday, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, said the Cuban government erroneously identified Roberto Azcorra Consuegra as one of the boat passengers late Wednesday. He said Azcorra was not aboard the boat.
Cuba’s government said that one of the four killed was Michel Ortega Casanova.
“The investigation process continues until the facts are fully clarified,” the ministry said in a statement.
Misael Ortega Casanova, brother of Michel Ortega Casanova, told the Associated Press late Wednesday that he was mourning his brother’s death but lamented that he fell into what he called an “obsessive and diabolical” quest for Cuba’s freedom.
“Only us Cubans who have lived over there understand,” Misael Ortega Casanova said, referring to the “great suffering” that he and other Cubans on the island have faced.
He noted that his brother, who was a truck driver and an American citizen who lived for more than 20 years in the U.S., leaves behind his wife, his mother, two sisters — one of whom lives in Cuba — and a daughter who is pregnant.
“No one knew,” Misael said of his brother’s plans. “My mother is devastated.”
He added: “They became so obsessed that they didn’t think about the consequences nor their own lives.”
Misael said that he did not recognize any of the names that the Cuban government released.
He said that while he doesn’t believe in heroes — “because that is ignorance” — he hopes that his brother’s death might be a worthwhile sacrifice: “Maybe it will justify that some day Cuba will be free.”
A ‘highly unusual’ shootout
President Donald Trump’s top diplomat refused to speculate on what happened, saying that it could be a “wide range of things,” and that the U.S. will not solely rely on what the Cuban authorities have provided thus far.
“Suffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It’s not something that happens every day. It’s something, frankly, that hasn’t happened with Cuba in a very long time,” Rubio said.
He said both the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Coast Guard are investigating the incident and stressed that he wants to verify the facts.
“The majority of the facts being publicly reported are those by the information provided by the Cubans. We will verify that independently as we gather more information, and we’ll be prepared to respond accordingly,” Rubio said. “We’re going to have our own information on this. We’re going to figure out exactly what happened.”
He said it was not a U.S. government operation and that he wasn’t “going to speculate about whose boat it was, what they were doing, why they were there, what actually happened.”
One of the men identified by the Cuban government, Conrado Galindo Sariol, was interviewed in June 2025 by Martí Noticias, a U.S.-based news site that has long called for a change of government in Cuba.
Galindo, whom the host called “a legend” and a former political prisoner, was quoted as saying that he wants to support the struggles that Cubans face, especially in the eastern part of the island “to achieve the freedom that is needed.”
He said that the protests in Cuba at that time were “not a spark that’s going to be extinguished.”
“The regime’s leaders are crisscrossing Cuba, trying to mitigate what’s coming very soon because … they know they’re out of power, that they can’t do anything about it, and they’re looking for ways to prevent the protests from growing in other parts of the country,” Galindo was quoted as saying.
Fear over increased tensions
Rubio said he found out about the shooting before the Cuban government posted on social media, noting that the U.S. has “constant contact” with the country “at the Coast Guard level.”
Earlier, Cuba’s Interior Ministry issued a statement that provided few details about the shooting, but noted that the boat was roughly 1 mile northeast of Cayo Falcones, off Cuba’s north coast.
The government provided the boat’s registration number, but the Associated Press was unable to readily verify details of the boat because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.
It wasn’t immediately known what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters. In the statement, the ministry said Cuba’s government was “safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida said it would pursue answers “through every legal and diplomatic channel available,” adding that “facts remain unclear and conflicting.”
Vice President JD Vance said late Wednesday afternoon that Rubio had briefed him on the incident. He added that the White House was monitoring the situation.
“Hopefully it’s not as bad as we fear it could be,” Vance said.
The shooting threatens to increase tensions between the U.S. and Cuba. Following the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Cuba, which had been largely kept economically afloat by Venezuela’s oil.
The energy crisis Cuba has been grappling with in recent years entered new extremes last month when Trump signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The move put pressure on Mexico, which Cuba became largely dependent on for petroleum after Trump halted oil shipments from Venezuela.
Meanwhile, James Uthmeier, Florida’s attorney general, said he has ordered prosecutors to work with federal, state and law enforcement partners to start an investigation.
“The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,” he wrote on X.
