JOIN USBogus cyber siren reveals elite lifestyle of Castro's son
And Antonio Castro did. The pair never met, but conducted an eight-month cyber romance in which the Cuban, in between lifting the lid on the lifestyle of Havana’s elite, said he wanted to make love to Claudia. It is safe to say the relationship will not be consummated. Claudia has outed herself as a 46-year-old male Florida-based prankster and given her story to media.
Luis Dominguez, a Cuban-born Miamian, said he orchestrated the sting to “shatter the myth” of an “impenetrable” security system around the Castro family.
Antonio Castro, 42, the physician to Cuba’s national baseball team and reputedly Fidel’s favourite son, is said to have conducted more than 20 internet chats with “Claudia”. He divulged no state secrets, but spilled the beans on freedoms and material privileges enjoyed by the ruling class. “While everyday Cubans were banned from using the internet cafes in Havana hotels, this guy had a BlackBerry and unlimited access to the web,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez, a security company employee who runs a Spanish-language website, said he got the idea for the ruse during a 2006 baseball tournament in Cartagena, Colombia, where beautiful young women mobbed the Cuban team’s doctor “like a rock star”. Based on a study of Castro’s former girlfriends he created a virtual woman to fit the ideal, and last summer claudiacartagena82@yahoo.com emailed “tonycsport” to say she was a sports journalist and that they had met at the tournament. They started online chats last October. “Claudia” emailed a photo of herself — an attractive brunette with blonde highlights — and the tone quickly turned flirty.
“Guess where I am and I will make love to you without stopping,” Castro reportedly wrote during a trip to Russia in January with his uncle Raul, who succeeded the ailing Fidel as president.
America Teve channel 41 said: “We’re showing the audience the two Cubas. That supposed revolutionary morality? Antonio does not live it.”