Two Cuban-American owners of the Cubata bar, located in Little Havana, have a problem with their employees and suppliers because they have not been able to pay them because Wells Fargo froze their bank accounts due to doubts about their immigration status.
Yaumara Pérez and Alejandro Ronda assure that they do not question that the bank carries out the identity verification process, what they do not understand is the way, which is without price notice or any notification.
“I almost had a heart attack because all the money in the account had disappeared. They never notified us, there was never a notification,” Yaumara Pérez complained in statements to journalist Yuniesky Ramírez for Telemundo 51.
“The problem is on my part, but since I am linked to the account, everyone is affected,” said Alejandro Ronda, who explains that he arrived in the United States more than a decade ago and that he is naturalized.
Wells Fargo asked the owner of Cubata to present a passport, a naturalization or social certificate, and to sign a statement confirming that he has no ties to Cuba or its communist party.
“I can’t do anything, no operation. “I can’t pay anything with any card,” said Ronda.
The owners of Cubata have had a chain of serious inconveniences in the last three days and are waiting for answers. At the moment, the establishment’s employees have not been able to collect their fortnight and the bar’s suppliers, who already had checks issued by the businessmen, have not been able to collect them.
Although the regulations of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) require banks to require Cubans to prove their immigration status in the United States, in the document there is no reference to the blocking of their accounts being mandatory during the process nor that all have to sign an affidavit despite having status as a resident or naturalized citizen.
Telemundo 51 argues that there are at least four cases of something similar in recent days.
This same week it emerged that a branch of the Wells Fargo bank in the west of the city of Hialeah unexpectedly froze the accounts of a Cuban permanent resident in the US and his wife, a citizen of US origin.
In that case, the banking entity required the citizen of Cuban origin – who has been a permanent resident in the United States since the 90s of the last century – to present documents confirming his legal residence, including his residence card (green card) and your social security number.
In addition, he also had to sign a sworn statement in Spanish in which he had to ensure that he had no links with the Communist Party of Cuba or with repressive organizations of the regime. The statement also stated that he has no intention of returning to the island.
At the moment, Wells Fargo has not specified how many clients are subject to this process, nor the criteria for requiring the signing of the affidavit.
