“Fidel? Fidel, is that you?”

People from Miami sure love their practical jokes. It turns out Fidel Castro’s son, Antonio, was duped into an eight-month Internet relationship with a man named Luis Dominguez (posing as a Colombian woman named "Claudia") But this isn’t the first Castro communication prank. In 2003, a pair of Miami-based radio hosts prank-called Venezuelan President Hugo ...

People from Miami sure love their practical jokes.

People from Miami sure love their practical jokes.

It turns out Fidel Castro’s son, Antonio, was duped into an eight-month Internet relationship with a man named Luis Dominguez (posing as a Colombian woman named "Claudia") But this isn’t the first Castro communication prank.

In 2003, a pair of Miami-based radio hosts prank-called Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, pretending to be Cuba’s then-head-of-state. They got him, too, using recorded snippets of Fidel’s voice to convince Chavez (whose private number was given out, live, by a secretary) that Castro was actually checking in.

The recording of the call is in Spanish, but don’t worry — a transcript for non-speakers can be found here.

Brian Fung is an editorial researcher at FP.

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