Fanjul brothers

The Fanjul brothers — Alfonso "Alfy" Fanjul, José "Pepe" Fanjul, Alexander Fanjul, and Andres Fanjul — are owners of Fanjul Corp., a vast sugar and real estate conglomerate in the United States and Dominican Republic, comprising the subsidiaries Domino Sugar, Florida Crystals, C&H Sugar, Redpath Sugar, Tate & Lyle European Sugar, La Romana International Airport, and resorts surrounding La Romana in the Dominican Republic.

History

The Fanjul brothers' ancestry is Cuban and they are descendants of the Spaniard Andres Gomez-Mena who immigrated to Cuba in the 19th century and built up an empire of sugar mills and property by the time he died in 1910. In 1936, his descendant Lillian Gomez-Mena married Alfonso Fanjul, Sr, the heir of the New York-based sugar companies the Czarnikow Rionda Company and the Cuban Trading Company. The couple's holdings were then combined to create a large business of cane sugar mills, refineries, distilleries, and significant amounts of real estate. With Fidel Castro's 1959 Marxist Cuban Revolution, the family moved to Florida along with other wealthy, dispossessed Cuban families. In 1960, Alfonso Sr., the father of the current CEO of Fanjul Corp. Alfonso Jr., bought 4,000 acres (16 km²) of property near Lake Okeechobee along with some sugar mills from Louisiana and started over. Alfonso Sr. and his son Alfy Fanjul got the firm off its feet and Pepe, Alexander and Andres joined in the late 1960s and 1970s. Pepe Fanjul Jr. joined the sugar firm in 2002. As of 2008, the company owned 155,000 acres (630 km²) in Palm Beach County.

The Fanjul brothers were parodied in Carl Hiaasen's 1993 novel Strip Tease, which features a pair of Cuban brothers who own a large sugar conglomerate, that receives enormous profits from the exploitation of immigrant labor and the subsidies regularly voted to them by the United States Congress.

The brothers also were a focus in the Jamie Johnson documentary The One Percent, which showcases the corrupt use of cane workers and especially "imported" labor. The U.S. Dept. of Labor's "List of Goods Produced by Child or Forced Labor" report lists sugarcane from the Dominican Republic as having child and forced labor. This is a major source of sugarcane for Domino Foods which is owned by Florida Crystals and the Fanjul brothers.

José "Pepe" Fanjul was part of the 17 December 2012 BBC2 television edition of fly-on-the-wall documentary Inside Claridge’s. He was shown as a regular client of the Claridge's Hotel, enjoying a luxury lifestyle in a £3,500 a night room, with a shooting in Scotland and trips across the world. He was said to have spent 300 nights at the hotel over the past decade.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report "Big Sugar" also exposes the slavery conditions of workers at Central Romana with clear footage. Nevertheless the Fanjul interviewed in the report keeps denying this fact with the argument that must correspond to another plantation.

Various business holdings and ventures

The Fanjul brothers were large shareholders and directors of Southeast Bank before its takeover and liquidation by the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1991. In addition, they are the majority shareholders and directors of FAIC Securities, which was investigated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission for regulatory violations.

External links

• Florida Crystals
• A Dance of Environment and Economics in the Everglades
• Sugar Buyout Only Adds to Complexity of Everglades Restoration
• The Castro Collection
• "Fla. sugar king Pepe Fanjul dreams of post-Castro Cuba."
• With acquisition of Tate & Lyle, Palm Beach County-owned sugar giant goes global
• 23 Under 40