Juan Tamayo

Sixteen years after the arrests in Miami of five Cuban spies who got their secret orders by short wave transmissions, Havana is still using a system that fell out of favor in the cloak-and-dagger world with the end of the Cold War.

Panama said Wednesday that it had slapped disorderly conduct charges on 35 crewmembers of a rusty North Korean freighter carrying “obsolete” military equipment – including apparently two MiG-21 fighter jets – and summoned U.N. experts to ascertain if the shipment violated U.N. resolutions.

A series of cables from diplomats at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana a few years ago indicates that at the time they found no "direct evidence" of money laundering in Cuba, but said the island has one of the world's "most secretive" banking systems.