<!--this persons date of birth is disputed, do not remove question marks or categorise as if it were an 1880 birth year-->
Benito Martínez Abrogán (died October 11, 2006) was a Haitian Cuban who claimed to be the world's oldest living person. He claimed to have been born on June 19, 1880, near Cavaellon, Haiti; however, he had no documents to verify this and was thus never an officially eligible candidate for this record. The Cuban government sent officials to Haiti to investigate, but found nothing to either prove or disprove the claim. Cuban government medical experts attested that he was at least 119 years old at the time of his death, but the reasons for this determination were never presented.
Early life
Martínez has papers proving he came to Cuba via steamship in the 1920s from Haiti, but his age at the time was not recorded. Initially he found employment on the family ranch of future Cuban president Fidel Castro. He was nicknamed, "El Avión" (the aeroplane), for the speed at which he worked as he helped to construct the original highway across Cuba.