Payments to Canadian business suspended for using Cuban coffee

Little Havana, a business located in the city of Toronto, Canada, today faces a ban on receiving payments through online technology because it markets Cuban coffee.

The company makes its profits through Square Canada’s platform, and has lost 14,000 Canadian dollars since the end of August, equivalent to more than 10,500 U.S. dollars in payments from customers who never reached their bank account.

According to Prensa Latina, the loss is due to the fact that the online payment platform employs the U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase & Co., which “cannot or will not release the funds” because of fears about the origin of the coffee, explained Mónica Mustelier, co-owner of the business.

Valerie Jackson, communications manager for Square Canada, confirmed that the issue is not a technological problem after all, as they initially thought that the lost money was withheld due to technical problems.

Josefina Vidal, Cuban ambassador to Canada, rejected in her official Twitter account the extraterritoriality of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba, which affects totally Canadian companies.

This extraterritorial implementation of the blockade against Cuba in Canada should not happen, because Square is a Canadian company, wrote the diplomat, who pointed out that this was another reason to demand the end of the blockade against Cuba, Square Canada does not have a technical problem, its problem is Cuban coffee, she said.

In almost six decades of hostile U.S. policy, the Cuban economy has suffered losses equivalent to more than 922 billion dollars, damage that the Caribbean nation will denounce once again before the international community at the UN next November.

(With information from PL in Spanish)

Written by Radio Grito de Baire