Fidel Castro’s son duped by internet prankster

Antonio Castro Soto del Valle, the 42-year-old playboy son of Cuba's former leader Fidel, has been duped into an internet romance by an exiled Cuban, posing as a 26-year-old woman, who wanted to expose the Castro family's "opulent lifestyles".

Antonio, who is physician to Cuba's national baseball team and reputedly Fidel's favourite son, thought he had spent the past eight months chatting to a Columbian sports journalist called Claudia Valencia. But 'Claudia' turned out to be Luis Dominguez, a 46-year-old Cuban-born internet prankster, who lives in Florida.

Dominguez outed himself this weekend when he gave his story to a Miami television station, América Tevé channel 41, and the Miami Herald newspaper, who verified the conversations. The blogger, who left Cuba in 1971, said he wanted to "shatter the myth" of an "impenetrable" security system around the Castro family.

"While everyday Cubans were banned from using the internet cafes in Havana hotels, this guy had a BlackBerry and unlimited access to the web," Dominguez told the Herald, which ran transcripts of the flirtatious chats between 'Claudia' and 'tonycsport'.

Dominguez, a security company employee who also runs a website on Cuba's armed forces and security services, said he got the idea for the internet sting at a baseball tournament in Columbia in 2006. Beautiful young women mobbed the Cuban team's doctor "like a rock star". Last summer 'Claudia', a brunette with blonde highlights who was based on a study of Castro's previous girlfriends, emailed Castro to say she had met him at the tournament.

Castro, who is engaged to a 26-year-old TV producer in Havana, did not share any state secrets but breached the Castro family's normally tight security by passing on his home phone number and address, and revealing he had no bodyguards. He also boasted of his trips to Russia with his uncle Raul, beach holidays, his Lacoste shirts and Apple computer - all signs of a capitalist lifestyle. "I want to kiss you, love you, and make love to you," he told his cyber-girlfriend. Their conversations petered out in March and Dominguez handed his story to the Miami media shortly after.

It is not the first time that the younger Castro’s love life has embarrassed his father. In 2002, a Florida TV channel broadcast a series called The Secret Life of Fidel Castro, based on home videos stolen by one of Antonio's spurned girlfriends, Dashiell Torralba.