Billboard with the three rulers of Cuba: For the two still alive – Raúl Castro and Miguel Díaz-Canel – the air is getting thinner and thinner.Image: X03465
Exploding shells, manipulated diving suits and a previous affair as a killer: in the fight against Cuba’s rulers, the US secret service has already resorted to spectacular murder methods. Now his brother Raúl Castro is in the sights of the US justice system.
May 25, 2026, 1:27 p.mMay 25, 2026, 1:31 p.m
Simon Maurer / ch media
The situation in Cuba is getting worse: the island state’s economy has fallen to a low point due to massive US sanctions, and the country is politically isolated like never before. Now the USA has officially brought charges against ex-President Raúl Castro. Under Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State with Cuban parents, the communist state is even more in the focus of Americans than in previous years.
Accordingly, fears of an attack by the USA are increasing in Havana. What is feared is less a military intervention like in Iran, but rather an intelligence operation against the political leadership – like in Venezuela against dictator Maduro. Especially because around 638 assassination attempts have been planned against long-time Cuban ruler Fidel Castro – Raúl’s older brother – in the past.
In recent decades, the CIA’s crazy plans have ranged from poison attacks to collaboration with an ex-lover. Could similar attacks soon threaten Fidel’s brother Raúl or President Miguel Díaz-Canel? An overview:
Poisoned and bombastic cigars
For Fidel Castro, cigars were luxury goods – for the CIA, they were suddenly a potential instrument of murder.Image: www.imago-images.de
It has long been known that the Cuban dictator loves Cohiba cigars. The CIA’s medical department therefore tried to take him out of circulation with differently prepared cigars. Some cigars laced with botulinum toxin (Botox) were actually manufactured and given to a middleman to deliver them to Cuba in 1961. Whether they got there is unknown.
The idea of foisting exploding cigars on Fidel Castro was also examined. However, this was considered less practical, so poisoned cigars were preferred.
Rigged diving suits
The CIA also wanted to exploit Castro’s passion for diving. At the beginning of the 1960s, the secret Cuba unit “Task Force W” developed a perfidious plan: a diving suit for Fidel Castro was to be prepared with dangerous fungal spores that could trigger a serious skin disease. In addition, CIA technicians wanted to contaminate the snorkel with tuberculosis bacteria.
The suit was supposed to be handed over by the American lawyer James Donovan, who was negotiating with Cuba about prisoners at the time – without knowing about the plan. But the suit apparently never reached Castro because Donavan gave Castro another diving suit – without knowing about the danger of the CIA suit.
Exploding shells
Even underwater, Fidel Castro wasn’t safe. According to the Church Report – a later US Senate investigation into secret CIA operations – the CIA examined a particularly crazy plan in the early 1960s: to plant a conspicuously large shell containing explosives at a diving site frequently visited by Castro.
The intelligence officers hoped Castro would pick up the unusual shell out of curiosity – which is what the bomb was supposed to detonate on. However, the plan was scrapped at the laboratory testing stage because intelligence officials deemed it impractical.
The ex-lover as an assassin
Fidel Castro’s ex-lover Marita Lorenz thought about the Cuban until the very end. “He is still my great love,” she said in 2001.Image: AP
The classic motive of every spy thriller was also up for debate at the CIA: recruiting an old affair as a double agent. According to her own statements, Marita Lorenz, Fidel Castro’s former lover, received poison capsules from the secret services, which she was supposed to secretly mix into Castro’s food.
However, when she confronted Castro in Havana, the Cuban is said to have immediately realized what was going on. According to her, he even handed her his pistol. Lorenz didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger – and left Cuba again a short time later.
Poison against heavy beard growth
Fidel Castro’s trademark beard is still used by some in Cuba as a symbol of his revolution.Image: AP
Not every secret service plan was aimed directly at the death of Fidel Castro. At the beginning of the 1960s, American secret service agents were also concerned with how the public image of the Cuban revolutionary leader could be destroyed. The CIA’s technical department came up with the idea of sabotaging Fidel Castro’s prominent beard – it was considered a symbol of the revolution worldwide.
According to the Church report that was later published for the US Congress, the US secret services actually prepared such an operation. Castro’s shoes were to be secretly dusted with thallium salts – a toxic chemical that causes severe hair loss.
The hope was that Castro’s legendary beard would fall out and he would thereby lose his aura as a revolutionary leader. The CIA obtained the drug and tested it on animals. It was supposed to be used during a trip abroad when Castro left his shoes in front of the hotel door to be cleaned. But because Castro canceled the trip at short notice, the plan was never implemented.
All of the CIA’s crazy plans failed spectacularly. Fidel Castro died in his sleep in Havana in 2016. He was 94 years old. However, the plans show how far Washington was willing to go in the fight against the Castro dynasty.