About 60 websites belonging to the British Virgin Islands-based travel agency that books Caribbean vacations for Europeans have been shut down. This was done by order of the U.S. government, and became part of Washington’s long-lasting “cold war†against Cuba.
BVI-registered Tour and Marketing International has offices in the BVI, UK, and Spain. Along with other destinations, the company books tour packages to Cuba. Its websites were registered with US-based domain register eNom, which controls more than 10 mln website names around the world. In December 2004, the travel agency together with its website domains was added to a specially designated nationals and blocked persons (SDN) list. By law, US citizens and residents are forbidden from doing business with it.
In October 2007 eNom closed several sites of the BVI company, including TourandMarketing.com, AboutCuba.com, BonjourCuba.com, and Cuba-Hemingway.com. All these sites had operated since 1998. The eNom said they blocked the domains of the BVI company after receiving a call from the Treasury Department; the domain registrar said they learned the sites were on the “black list†through a blog.
By the statement of a Treasury Department, the action of closing the websites was taken as part of Washington’s policy to “choke off dollars steaming to the Castro regime, and make it more difficult for the Cuban government to harden its internal security and military infrastructureâ€.