Andrew Tilghman July 22, 2008, 5:14 PM

From the Miami Herald:

Congress has put the U.S. Agency for International Development’s $45 million Cuba program’s 2008 funding on hold, following a series of troubling audits and cases of massive fraud, The Miami Herald has learned.

In a quest to get the funding hold lifted, U.S. AID on Friday ordered a bottoms-up review of all its Cuba democracy programs and suspended a Miami anti-Castro exile group that spent at least $11,000 of federal grant money on personal items.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ordered a hold on the U.S. AID Cuba program funding last month, in part in response to a $500,000 embezzlement at the Center for a Free Cuba in Washington disclosed earlier this year, federal officials said.

Rep. Howard Berman continued to amp up the pressure today, saying the amount embezzled amounts to $700,000.

Berman’s been pushing for a “fresh ideas” in the U.S. policy toward Cuba.