Raúl Castro was being feted by the French, walking up a red carpet to a government palace in Paris during a state visit in 2016 when irate photographers began to yell in the direction of the then- Cuban president.
“Please! Bodyguard!” the photographers shouted at the Cuban official who was on Castro’s heels and spoiling their shot.
Then-French President François Hollande waved away the Cuban bodyguard trailing the two leaders and the moment became fodder for the country’s late-night comedians. Such a public gaffe might have been a career-ender for any other security official – except the bodyguard in question was also a Castro.
Named for his grandfather, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro has for more than a decade acted as part bodyguard, part gatekeeper to Cuba’s most powerful living figure, always just feet away when Raúl Castro appears in public.
He would whisper the names of Cuban officials into his grandfather’s ear when the elder Castro, who is 94 and is now at least officially retired, pressed the flesh in receiving lines, and has alerted him in the middle of a speech when the foreign press has been ushered into the room.
While he is always in the background, Rodríguez Castro’s name and family connection are never mentioned in Cuba’s tightly controlled state-run press.
At a moment of maximum tension between the US and Cuba, Rodríguez Castro is emerging from his grandfather’s shadow to take on a surprising role as an interlocutor with the Trump administration that seems hellbent on upending his family’s tight control over the communist-run island.
The Castro bodyguard turned emissary is a twist that few who follow Cuba saw coming.
A colonel in Cuba’s Interior Ministry, Rodríguez Castro was born with a sixth finger on one hand, which earned him the moniker El Cangrejo or “the Crab.” During meetings with world leaders as varied as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin or former US President Barack Obama, he invariably stayed glued to his grandfather’s side.
While Rodríguez Castro does not have an official public role, he does little to hide the perks that would usually be far beyond the reach of a colonel in the Cuban military, at least one who is not part of the Castro family.
He is a fixture in some of Havana’s fanciest restaurants and has been seen driving in a new SUV with his own security detail.
Leaked social media videos also show the younger Castro frolicking aboard private yachts and partying in expensive discotheques, unattainable luxuries for most Cubans .
“He wants positive changes for Cubans,” Rodríguez Castro’s second-cousin Sandro Castro told CNN during a wide-ranging interview in March.
While close in age and both belonging to the same family that seized power on the island nearly 70 years ago, Sandro Castro said he and his cousin did not grow up together and rarely see one another but are friendly.
“Raulito has his life and I have mine,” said Sandro Castro, who runs his own nightclub and is a controversy-seeking influencer in favor of a deal with the Trump administration to revive the island’s flatlining economy.
“He is a military man, he has always been his grandfather’s bodyguard,” Sandro Castro said of his cousin. “He has his grandfather’s confidence. He has risked his life for him. That’s why they have given so much trust.”
Despite their seemingly opposite temperaments and vocations, Sandro Castro said his cousin shares his enthusiasm for flashy cars, the jet set life and the nightclub scene in Havana – only enjoyed by a privileged class of Cubans with dollars to spend.
“He’s cool,” said Sandro Castro of his cousin. “He is not a communist, either. He wants things to open up, too.”
Depending on how negotiations advance with the Trump administration, Rodríguez Castro could be poised to reap the benefits of an injection of US capitalism in Cuba’s flagging, centrally run socialist economic system.
Rodríguez Castro is the son of Raúl Castro’s daughter Deborah and Luis Alberto López-Calleja, the late general and head of GAESA, the military consortium that oversees a sprawling empire of hotels, marinas and other opaque businesses that encompass the lion’s share of the island’s economy.
On a trip to Mexico in 2019, López-Calleja was listed by the Mexican government as “the principal adviser” to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel whom he was accompanying.
Already in charge of the military’s moneymaking enterprises and married into the Castro family, López-Calleja became a member of the National Assembly in 2021, a prerequisite to higher government positions on the island, including the presidency.
But López-Calleja passed away unexpectedly in 2022 from a heart attack. Following his father’s death, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro has apparently taken a greater interest in the worlds of business and politics on the island.
He has dined with European ambassadors stationed in Cuba and requested private tours of the pavilions of Cuba’s economic partners during Havana’s yearly week-long business trade show, a diplomatic source told CNN.
“He’s become more of a business guy, less of a party guy,” one long-time foreign investor in Cuba told CNN. “Every time there’s a new venture allowed by the government to say import cars or sell high end goods, people wonder if he’s involved,” the investor said.
According to a 2025 report from Panama’s La Prensa newspaper , Rodríguez Castro has taken at least 13 flights on private jets belonging to the Venezuelan government that shuttled him between Havana, Panama and Caracas when Venezuela was still a close trading partner.
CNN has reached out the Cuban government for comment about Rodríguez Castro’s role and background.
Despite his high profile and close connection to his grandfather, the news first reported by Axios in February that Rodríguez Castro had been secretly negotiating with the Trump administration to discuss a possible diplomatic deal struck many Cuba observers as improbable.
A former Cuban official at the time called the report Trump administration “psy-ops” and doubted that with so little diplomatic training, Rodríguez Castro would be entrusted with such an important mission.
Confirmation for the Cuban public came in March, when President Miguel Diaz-Canel appeared on TV to acknowledge for the first time the negotiations with the US. There in the small audience of top officials — without his grandfather in attendance — was Rodríguez Castro.
“He had no reason to be there,” said one longtime Cuba observer who did not want to be quoted by name to avoid repercussions. “He is not a politician, nor an expert in international relations; he is a bodyguard.”
All the same, Rodríguez Castro has met at least twice in person with US State Department officials who have tried to convince him of the need for fundamental changes on the island while still retaining his family’s influence if not control, according to US officials.
Rodríguez Castro is seen by the Trump administration as the closest person to Raúl Castro, who is the only figure on the island able to mandate a dramatic shift in relations with the US and dismiss any Cuban officials trying to obstruct a deal.
But it’s unclear where talks with a Castro to fundamentally dismantle their revolution will lead.
“US policy has organized itself around the removal of the Castros, but it seems now that the Trump administration is basically empowering the Castros by negotiating with Raúl Castro’s grandson at the expense of Díaz Canel,” Juan Gonzalez, who was the senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council under the Biden administration, told CNN.
“We never saw El Cangrejo as a major player inside of the Cuban Communist Party,” he said, “So I did find it surprising. Anything that he is going to negotiate is going to include the regime’s survival.”
“It’s not clear this administration has a plan for Cuba,” Gonzalez said. “There is a lot of improvisation going on.”
