This is a bit of a strange story coming out of Cuba today. As we know, Cuba doesn’t have the power to keep the lights on or the fuel to refuel passenger jets but it does still have plenty of gas for the Coast Guard. This morning, Cuba claims a Coast Guard vessel intercepted a US registered “speedboat” with ten people on it and a shootout took place.
As the Florida-registered vessel came within a nautical mile of Cuba’s northern coast, the country’s border guard troops approached and asked for identification, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The speedboat crew opened fire on the Cuban troops, injuring the vessel’s commander, the ministry said. Cuban forces returned fire.
Four people on the speedboat were killed and six wounded, the ministry said. The wounded were evacuated to receive medical attention.
The full statement from Cuba was posted on X:
Note from the Ministry of the Interior:
On the morning of February 25, 2026, a violating speedboat was detected within Cuban territorial waters. The vessel, registered in Florida, United States, with registration number FL7726SH, approached up to 1 nautical mile northeast of the… pic.twitter.com/AEmwtAZ4lO
— Cuban Embassy in US (@EmbaCubaUS) February 25, 2026
That’s Cuba’s version of what happened and no else is available to contradict them at the moment. The shootout happened near central Cuba.
BREAKING:
Cuban forces open fire on a Florida-registered speedboat in the waters near Cuba’s Villa Clara province.
4 people killed and 6 wounded. It’s unclear at this point if any U.S. citizens have been killed. pic.twitter.com/J128qA5APN
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 25, 2026
All we can say for sure at this point is that the Cuban characterization of this as a “speedboat” conjures up images of some sleek, expensive craft. In fact, the registration shows this was a 24′ fishing boat built in 1981.
The Florida-registered boat appears to be a 24-foot Pro-Line motorboat built in 1981, according to Florida state records. That is what corresponds to the registration number provided by the Cuban authorities.
That’s certainly not a ship — more like a fishing boat. Typically a 24-foot boat like that has a capacity for eight to 10 people. Cuban officials suggested 10 were aboard.
You can see the original brochure from 1981 here. It looked something like this.
Hunterbrook has reviewed registration history for the vessel, indicating that it was a 1981 Pro-Line 24 foot center-console, with an active registration in Florida.
(Example image of the model) pic.twitter.com/0mYR7c5tzL
— Hunterbrook (@hntrbrkmedia) February 25, 2026
What was the boat doing there? Well, my first thought was to wonder if the US was quietly sending in some special operations guys. Sec. Rubio has denied that was the case.
Asked whether the incident might have involved American government personnel or been an American government operation, Rubio said “No.”
Of course we might not admit that’s what we were doing if we got caught doing it. But there’s another possibility here and that’s that this was a boat used for smuggling.
A gunfight in Cuba’s territorial waters on Wednesday was not the first time in recent years that the Cuban government has fired on a U.S.-based vessel.
In 2022, Cuba’s Ministry of Interior announced that it had intercepted a total of 13 American speedboats engaged in migrant-smuggling that year and exchanged gunfire with two of them.
In June of that year, one of those two boats was sailing west of Cayo Fragoso, a small island on the northern coast of Cuba, and entered the country’s waters. While being pursued by border guards, a person aboard the boat opened fire at close range with an automatic rifle, the Cuban government said, and an officer was wounded.
The 2022 incident sounds very similar to the one that happened this morning. And obviously with the situation in Cuba being what it is right now, there is growing desire on the part of a lot of people to get out of the country if they can. Estimates vary, but somewhere between 1 million and 2.75 million Cubans have fled the country since 2020. The Cuban government routinely decides to wink at such migration because it results in people who might cause trouble for the government at home taking their discontent with them.
But for the moment it’s all speculation because no one outside Cuba seems to know who was on the boat or why. Obviously, if the people shot turn out to be American citizens that might further damage the already poor relations with the United States.
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