Singer Beyonce and Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter traveled to Cuba “pursuant to an educational exchange trip” organized by an authorized company, the U.S. Treasury Department said in response to inquiries from Florida lawmakers.

The trip by the celebrity couple spurred widespread media coverage after two U.S. representatives from Florida, Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, asked the Treasury who approved the travel and for what purpose. U.S. law prohibits financial transactions for tourist activities in Cuba to prevent funding of the government, which controls the industry. The Treasury permits visits for educational reasons.

“It is our understanding that the travelers in question traveled to Cuba pursuant to an educational exchange,” the Treasury said yesterday in a response to each of the lawmakers. The visit was organized by a group authorized to sponsor such trips and coordinate “programs to promote people-to-people contact in Cuba,” it said in letters to the representatives.

The Treasury’s “regulations and guidelines require that such trips involve a full-time schedule of educational exchange activities,” according to the department’s letters.

In her April 5 inquiry to the Treasury, Ros-Lehtinen said the restrictions are in place because communist Cuba is “one of four U.S.-designated state sponsors of terrorism with one of the world’s most egregious human-rights records.”

Read more:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-10...l-treasury.html

It was their anniversary trip.