A former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and member of the National Security Council has been indicted on charges of defying the U.S. government for decades by conducting “secret intelligence gathering missions” on behalf of communist Cuba.
“This action exposes one of the most widespread and long-lasting infiltration of the United States government by foreign agents,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
“We have identified Victor Manuel Rocha as an agent of the Cuban government for over 40 years, seeking out a position within the U.S. government that gives him access to non-public information and the ability to influence U.S. foreign policy. We claim we earned it,” Garland said. “Those who have the privilege of serving the United States government are vested with the utmost trust of the people we serve. To betray that trust by pledging false allegiance to the United States while serving a foreign power is a grave crime. The Department of Justice will respond with all its might.”
Victor Manuel Rocha’s career in covert operations began in 1980 and ended in a shocking downfall in 2012.
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Victor Manuel Rocha poses for a photo in his Miami office in January 2003. (Raul Rubiera/Miami Herald/Associated Press)
According to the release Rocha, from the Department of Justice, is a native of Colombia and a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The 73-year-old is said to have worked as a secret agent for the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, covertly supporting Cuba and its “secret intelligence gathering missions” against the United States.
According to a criminal complaint from the Department of Justice, Rocha used his work at the U.S. State Department from 1981 to 2002 to obtain classified information and influence U.S. foreign policy.
After working at the State Department, Rocha moved in 2006 as an advisor to the commander of U.S. Southern Command, the U.S. military’s joint command in Cuba.
Former US ambassador arrested in Florida on suspicion of being a Cuban agent, Associated Press sources report (Gonzalo Espinoza/AFP via Getty Images)
The complaint alleges that Rocha kept his status as a Cuban agent secret to protect himself and others and to give him the opportunity to engage in additional “covert activities.”
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The Justice Department said Mr. Rocha provided false and misleading information to the United States to maintain his secret status, traveled outside the United States to meet with Cuban intelligence agents, and provided false and misleading information to obtain travel documents. He said that he made statements that invited
According to the complaint, Rocha made a series of recorded confessions to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban agent, saying he had contacted him on WhatsApp saying he had received a message “from a friend in Havana.”
Rocha praised the late communist leader Fidel Castro as a “commander,” branded the United States an “enemy,” and praised his service as Cuba’s mole at the center of U.S. foreign policy circles for more than 40 years. I was proud.
Rocha also described his work as a Cuban agent as a “grand slam.”
Rocha was charged with conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the attorney general. He acts as an agent of a foreign government without prior notice to the Attorney General. If a passport obtained through false declaration is used.
This image, provided by the Department of Justice and included in an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, shows Victor Manuel Rocha meeting with an undercover FBI agent. (Department of Justice, via AP)
At a hearing Thursday in federal court in Miami, Rocha said he agreed to plead guilty to two counts of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government. Associated Press.
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Prosecutors agreed to dismiss more than a dozen other charges in exchange for his guilty plea, according to the Associated Press.
