A center console rental boat travels south on the Atlantic Ocean from Key West to Cuba on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office
The boat the Cuban government says arrived in its waters Wednesday carrying 10 armed men was reported stolen hours later from the Florida Keys, according to a report from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.
The Cuban coast guard approached the boat and shot several of the men after taking fire from people aboard, according to a statement from the Cuban government. The firefight happened about one nautical mile northeast of the El Pino channel, in Cayo Falcones, off the northern coast of Villa Clara province in central Cuba.
The government said all 10 people were armed. Authorities said they found assault rifles, handguns, Molotov cocktails, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights and camouflage uniforms on the vessel. Four of the 10 were killed, the government says.
On Wednesday, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies went to a house on Avenue G in Big Pine Key in the Lower Keys around 8:45 p.m., where a man, Angel Montera, reported his 24-foot Pro Line boat was stolen.
Montera told deputies he lives in Miami-Dade County but keeps the boat at the Big Pine Key house, where the owner lets him keep it in exchange for construction work, according to the report.
He told deputies he reported it stolen because media called earlier in the day about the shooting, and the registration number released by the Cuban government matched the one on his vessel, the report states.
Montera said he had not seen his boat docked at the property in more than a week, according to the report.
A neighbor told deputies that she saw a white pickup pull into the property Tuesday, and a man got out of the truck and onto the vessel, leaving around 6:30 p.m.
Montera, 65, told deputies that the Chevy truck belonged to a man who does tile work for him named Hector Cruz Correa, whom he hadn’t seen since Friday, and who did not have permission to use his boat, according to the report. He told deputies he wanted to press charges against Correa for taking his boat, the report adds.
The Cuban government named Correa, 42, as one of the four people killed in the gun battle.
Montera said Correa has family living in Cuba, including two daughters, the report states. Correa had been trying to repair his own boat, a larger, twin-engine vessel, Montera told deputies. Deputies found that vessel at a storage unit Montera owns on Paradise Lane, also located in Big Pine Key, according to the report.
Montera arrived at the Keys house around 9:30 a.m., and that’s when he noticed the boat was gone and Correa’s truck was parked in the lot, according to the report. Deputies looked at Montera’s phone and verified that he had been unsuccessfully trying to reach Correa throughout the day, the report states.
A previous version of this story misstated the day a witness reported seeing someone take out Angel Montera’s boat. The neighbor told police she saw someone board the boat Tuesday evening.
This story was originally published February 26, 2026 at 2:33 PM.
Miami Herald
David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Before joining the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.Â