U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reportedly detained Rogelio Enrique Bolufé Izquierdo, a former bodyguard of late communist dictator Fidel Castro, and could soon deport him to either Mexico or Ecuador, according to the U.S. outlet Martí Noticias.
Martí Noticias and other Cuba-focused outlets described Bolufé Izquierdo as a former mayor of the Cuban Interior Ministry who reportedly joined the communist regime at the age of 19. Bolufé Izquierdo is a dual national of Ecuador with legal residence status in Mexico who is allegedly illegally in the United States. The Cuban official allegedly obtained Ecuadorian citizenship through a past marriage.
Sources with knowledge of the case confirmed to Martí Noticias that ICE arrested Bolufé Izquierdo on August 17 at the intersection of W 4th Ave and W 29th St., Hialeah, Florida, during a routine traffic stop. According to the reports, police officers found a plastic bag “containing white powder resembling cocaine” in the man’s pockets. Bolufé Izquierdo reportedly did not resist arrest and was moved to a detention center in Texas. The sources also told Martí Noticias that ICE is evaluating the possibility of deporting Bolufé Izquierdo to Mexico or Ecuador and not to Cuba.
In addition to allegedly being a former bodyguard of Fidel Castro, Bolufé Izquierdo appears to have close ties to Sandro Castro, the late dictator’s controversial grandson, and reportedly appeared with him in photos taken at some of Sandro Castro’s lavish parties. Pictures published by Martí Noticias show Bolufé Izquierdo accompanying Sandro Castro during Fidel’s funeral.
The former bodyguard’s son, Carlos Rogelio Bolufé García, is also a close friend of Sandro Castro and was reportedly the organizer of Sandro Castro’s widely condemned December 2024 birthday bash, an event held at a luxury club owned by Sandro Castro. The lavish “white dress code” event was held in Havana amid the ongoing collapse of the country’s infrastructure and the increasingly inhumane living conditions citizens are forced to endure.
“It’s strange that he was arrested for drugs. He drinks alcohol, but I didn’t know anything about drugs,” Bolufé García told Martí Noticias when asked about his father’s arrest. He abstained from specifying if his father owns any properties in Cuba.
Bolufé Izquierdo reportedly arrived in Miami, Florida in January 2020 on a visitor’s visa traveling from Mexico, where he held legal residence status and operated a bar in Yucatán known as La Nota (“The Note”). A month later, in February 2020, Bolufé Izquierdo presented himself as a “dissident” of the Cuban regime in an interview with Peruvian journalist Jaime Bayly, where he assured that he never deserted from the Cuban Interior Ministry.
“I have not deserted and I will not desert, because I am proud of who I am,” he said at the time, adding that he wanted to “return to liberate Cuba.”
Martí Noticias reported that the Cuban regime considers Bolufé Izquierdo a “terrorist” and included his name in the regime’s National Terrorist List for his alleged involvement with The New Cuban Nation, an alleged group that purportedly plotted to “sabotage” Cuba’s derelict power grid infrastructure. The list states that Bolufé Izquierdo was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on January 25, 1982, which would place him at 43 years of age.
According to the Cuban independent outlet 14 y Medio, “many have questioned” whether Bolufé Izquierdo is really a “desertor” of the Cuban regime or not and point to him as a possible “spy or double agent” of the Cuban regime in Miami.
“The former military officer’s own statements after arriving in the US on a tourist visa in 2020, assuring that he had not defected and that he would nevertheless be the ‘liberator of Cuba,’ ‘fueled suspicions,” 14 y Medio reported.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here
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