Travelers Get to Cuba Through Religious Fraud

Victor Vazquez and David Margolis were arrested and charged with using fake religious organizations to get thousands of people permission to travel to Cuba illegally.^[1] According to U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, they began to use nonexistent religious organizations in April 2006 to apply for federal government licenses allowing U.S. residents to travel to Cuba.^[2] Vasquez and Margolis then gave the licenses to travel agencies, who sold the use of them to more than 4,500 people.^[3] Aside from the normal cost of tickets, travelers were charged up to $250 extra for each use of the license.^[4]

The Cuban Sanctions Enforcement Task Force conducted the investigation into Vazquez and Margolis.^[5] The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issues and regulates the licenses.^[6] The mission of the office is to administer and enforce economic and trade sanctions based against targeted foreign countries, terrorists, international narcotics traffickers, and those engaged in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.^[7]

Vazquez and Margolis each have been charged by federal complaint with one count of conspiring to violate Cuba-related travel regulations.^[8] Vazquez was also charged with two counts of lying on applications to obtain religious travel licenses to Cuba. The maximum sentence for each charge is five years.^[9]

Conspiracy is an offense that occurs when two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.^[10]

They are also charged with “making false statements,” this occurs when person, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully; falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;^[11] makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation, or;^[12] makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry.^[13]

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^[1] By David Fischer, Religious Fraud Got Visitors Past Cuba Embargo, AP (via Tampa Tribune), February 23, 2007.
^[2] Id.
^[3] Id.
^[4] Id.
^[5] Id. (The task force includes the Treasury Department, FBI, and departments of Homeland Security and Commerce).
^[6] Pursuant to 31 C.F.R. §515.566 OFAC issues licenses to religious organizations that allow individuals to travel to Cuba for religious reasons, but these reasons “must be for the purpose of engaging, while in Cuba, in a full time program of religious activities.”
^[7] Fischer, supra note 1.
^[8] Id.
^[9] Id.
^[10] 18 U.S.C. § 371(2006).
^[11] 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(1)(2006)
^[12] Id. at § (a)(2).
^[13] Id. at § (a)(3).