Foto/Reuters
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(Cigar Aficionados) The scandal surrounding Manuel Garcia, the former marketing guru at Habanos S.A., continues to percolate. The week before Dave and I traveled to Cuba, The Economist published a story about his alleged crimes. The powers that be at Habanos knew all about the story, but universally panned it as pure speculation on the big points, and downright wrong on some details.
The story reported that Garcia had been arrested by Cuban State Security, along with 10 other employees of Habanos, for managing to smuggle 45 million cigars out of Cuba into the gray market of Europe.
We, of course, did a little math. Forty five million cigars equals about 1.8 million boxes of cigars, which at an average price of $200 (a conservative estimate) works out to nearly $360 million. We scoffed at that idea, and the Habanos executives as well as some officials from Altadis, the Spanish partner of Habanos, were incredulous.
Their comments ranged from not possible to not even remotely possible. Those dismissals flew in the face of Cubans who say anything is possible there, but, in fact, it is inconceivable that a clandestine cabal could have arranged for the secret export over a five-year period of that many finished cigars, directly from the factories. Just not possible, especially given the fact that cigars are a guaranteed source of foreign revenue for the government. Furthermore, the story inaccurately reported the number of people arrested; it's only five people, not 10.
So, where is the truth? No one knows (read more)
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