Border Guard [Tropas Guarda Fronteras - TGF]
The Border Guard [Tropas Guarda Fronteras - TGF] is controlled by the Interior Ministry. The Border Guard is variously estimated to consists of between 4,000 and 6,500 troops. They are equipped with three Soviet-built Stenka-class vessels, some 18 smaller Soviet-built Zhuk-class inshore patrol boats, and and numerous small boats and craft. As many as 9 ZHUK and oner STENKA inshore patrol craft have been withdrawn from service in recent years. The mission of the Border Guard is to control Cuba's frontiers, with emphasis on intercepting anti-Castro infiltrators and illegal emmigration. The Border Guard also counters drug trafficking and conducts search-and-rescue operations.
The Border Guard operates small coastal artillery garrisons in conjunction with the Cuban Army and Navy.
Cuba has intensified its efforts to stop Cubans from leaving the island. Since capturing speedboats is difficult, and the Border Guard is not authorized to use force to stop smugglers at sea, Cuba has focused on stopping people on land before they embark.
Cuba's Ministry of the Interior is responsible for drug law enforcement. The Cuban Border Guard conducts maritime drug interdiction and maintains liaison with the US Coast Guard. Although Cuba is not a major transit country for cocaine destined to the United States, drug traffickers continue to use Cuban waters and airspace to evade US interdiction assets. Go-fast boats from Jamaica routinely travel just inside Cuban waters to avoid contact with US vessels. Traffickers also fly small aircraft transporting cocaine from clandestine airfields on the Guajira Peninsula in Colombia through Cuban air space. Cocaine bales are dropped in the general area of Guinchos Cay/Cay Lobos, in or near Cuban waters. The cocaine usually is retrieved by Bahamian go-fast boats that take the drugs to The Bahamas for further transshipment to the United States.
According to the Cuban government, the Cuban Border Guard interdicts ninety percent of the drugs that Cuban law enforcement authorities seize. The lead investigative law enforcement agency on drugs in Cuba is the Ministry of the Interior’s National Anti-Drug Directorate (DNA). The DNA is comprised of a variety of law enforcement, intelligence, and youth affairs and education organizations. The US Coast Guard and Cuba’s Border Guard have exchanged information on a case-by-case basis which, on certain occasions, has led to the apprehension of several boats and crews involved in drug trafficking. At Havana’s Marina Hemingway, Border Guard officials detected on at least three occasions the presence of narcotics involving US-flagged vessels, two of which were ordered out of the country; the results were shared with US law enforcement officials.
Cuba’s decaying infrastructure, declining operations budgets, and sporadic fuel shortages have hampered enforcement efforts. The island’s 3500 nautical miles of coastline and more than 4000 sparsely populated islets and cays present an inviting environment for both air and maritime smuggling. In the past three years, the Government of Cuba (GOC) claims to have focused its attention on non-commercial boats and small aircraft, with a resulting increase in seizures and disrupted smuggling attempts.
