

Forty-year-old Antonio Castro, son of the ailing former dictator, has fallen for an elaborate hoax run by Miami man, Luis Dominguez.

Dominguez posed as Claudia Valencia, a beautiful Colombian woman attracted to the middle-aged Lothario because of his wealth and social-standing. Over the eight months of the hoax, the “relationship” blossomed and things started to get hot and steamy.

When asked why he orchestrated the prank, the Cuban-born Dominguez explained to the Miami Herald that it was to, “shatter the myth” that the Cuban government was impenetrable and to cast a spotlight on the extravagant lives lead by the Cuban elite.

In his own words:

While everyday Cubans were banned from using the internet cafes in Havana hotels, this guy had a BlackBerry and unlimited access to the web.

Castro boasted of his luxurious lifestyle throughout his communications with Valencia, telling her of shopping trips, weekends at Varadero and his travels around the world as the Cuban baseball team physician.

The idea for the ruse came from a trip that Castro made to Cartagena, Colombia with the Cuban baseball team. Dominguez explains:

Antonio was like a rock star, everyone asking to take photos with him, especially beautiful women. I got the idea that we could get close to him by posing as one of those women.

After studying photographs of Castro’s former girlfriends, Dominguez created the character of Claudia and established communication with Castro, explaining that they had met in Cartagena. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Check out the next page for our Antonio Castro gallery.