In June, two jailed British citizens Amado Fakhre and Stephen Purvis of Coral Capital Group Ltd. were found guilty by a Cuban court of minor charges and released for time already served.

Meanwhile, a Canadian citizen of Armenian descent, Sarkis Yaccoubian, and his cousin Krikor Bayassalian, a Lebanese citizen, were found guilty of bribery and other charges. Yacoubian was sentenced to nine years in jail and Bayassalian to four years.

A third trial is pending, that of Cy Tokmakjian, owner of the Toronto-based Tokmakjian Group. He was arrested in September 2011 and is likely to get a long prison term as well.

“The arrests of the foreign businessmen, part of broad government campaign to stamp out corruption, sent shockwaves through Cuba’s foreign business community where the companies were among the most visible players,” Reuters correspondent Marc Frank subsequently reported. “Until then, expulsions rather than imprisonment had been the norm for those accused of corrupt practices.”

A year ago, President Raúl Castro warned that corruption had become the leading threat to the revolution he and his brother Fidel helped bring about 50 years earlier. In fact, Cuban academics have repeatedly complained about corruption; almost every week, the “letters to the editor” section in Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, is full of letters denouncing all sorts of irregularities and illegal activities.

Over the last few years, dozens of top officials in key sectors such as the nickel industry, telecommunications, aviation, food processing and sugar have been hit with corruption scandals. Ministers, vice-ministers and even members of the Party’s Central Committee have been arrested, tried and sentenced to long prison terms.

Last December, Raúl promised to issue a detailed report on all these cases by mid-July, something that has stirred considerable speculation across the island.

Why and how corruption became a major threat in Cuba demands a thorough analysis. To understand what’s going on, remember that a total lack of accountability and control prevailed for almost 50 years, leading to a chaotic mishandling of the economy, including its external sector.

Cuba also lacked sound management or planning, financial controls, audits, reliable statistics or transparency which created the right of circumstances for swindlers, potential hoodlums and wise guys to grab their slice of the pie.

During the “Special Period” of the early 1990s, corruption became the rule rather than the exception. Consequently, the Cuban leadership shares an enormous responsibility for creating and allowing these patterns to become predominant in the Cuban economy. There was also a total lack of concern about incentives for Cuban experts, technicians, buyers and others who were handling multimillion-dollar contracts but not being rewarded in the form of salaries, bonuses or commissions a usual practice common everywhere else in the world to prevent or curtail temptations.

That type of environment tends to attract a certain type of wheeler-dealer hoping not to conduct serious business but to make fast and easy money. These people correctly perceived Cuba in the 1990s as a paradise where anyone and everyone could be bribed and this was indeed the case for more than a decade.

It’s a pattern that you can find all around the globe, a malady deeply rooted throughout the Third World but also among emerging economies and the BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

In these places, greed and corruption will continue to be part of the reality. Poverty and shortages of basic goods tend to create a certain “justifying” environment for such practices, like diseases, to flourish.

But it’s truly inconceivable that millionaires and tycoons in highly developed economies still resort to various corruption scams to increase or multiply their fortunes.

Within the much-respected EU and its sophisticated body of regulations and institutions, there’s a lot of talk about corruption.

In Spain alone, the last 13 years have seen more than 3,800 corruption scandals including a major one involving the royal family, with 2,000 people arrested and trials lasting for years.

In Cuba’s case, especially in view of the coming investment law, the message for potential foreign investors couldn’t be clearer:

• Do not indulge in such practices.

• Conducting business may involve some uncomfortable regulations, but try to understand that they are necessary to Cuba’s special situation vis-á-vis the United States.

• Dishonest practices will be punished.

• These laws are not necessarily aimed at multinationals like Canadian mining conglomerate Sherritt, Spanish hotel giant Meliá and major oil companies with their good practices, but at investment funds and other high-risk investors seeking to maximize their earnings by whatever means and dirty tricks they can lay their hands on.

Potential investors must realize that the old Cuba is being left behind, and that as part of the many changes taking place, there is now a general comptroller as well as audits, laws, regulations and controls. This isn’t meant to antagonize foreign investors and their projects, but to create a more favorable, stable and transparent environment in which to conduct their business. Local Cubans have already gotten the message and are now paying their share of the consequences.