Former US diplomat who spied for Cuba sentenced to fifteen years in jail | Espionage Information

Victor Manuel Rocha carried out one of many longest-lasting infiltrations of the US authorities, the Justice Division mentioned.

Victor Manuel Rocha, a former United States diplomat, has been sentenced to fifteen years in jail after admitting to performing as an agent of Cuba, in what the US Division of Justice has known as one of many highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US authorities.

In line with US prosecutors, Rocha secretly supported Cuba’s governing Communist Social gathering and aided the nation’s intelligence gathering in opposition to Washington for greater than 4 a long time, together with throughout a 20-year profession within the US Division of State.

“As we speak’s plea brings an finish to greater than 4 a long time of betrayal and deceit by Mr Rocha,” David Newman, a senior nationwide safety official on the US Justice Division mentioned at a information convention in Miami on Friday.

“For many of his life, Mr Rocha lived a lie.”

Rocha, 73, was arrested in December 2023 at his Miami dwelling on allegations that he had engaged in “clandestine exercise” for Cuba since a minimum of 1981 when he began his profession as a US diplomat.

He was accused of assembly Cuban intelligence operatives and falsifying info to US authorities officers about his contacts.

An undercover FBI agent posed as a consultant of Cuba’s Common Directorate of Intelligence and repeatedly met Rocha in 2022 and 2023. To this agent, Rocha admitted his a long time of labor for Cuba, in accordance with a court docket doc. The agent known as himself “Miguel” and Rocha’s admission was recorded.

Rocha spoke in reward of late Cuban chief Fidel Castro, and bragged about his service for greater than 40 years as a Cuban mole within the coronary heart of US international coverage circles, prosecutors mentioned in court docket data.

“What we now have carried out … it’s huge … greater than a Grand Slam,” he was quoted as saying.

US officers have mentioned they could by no means know the complete extent of Rocha’s cooperation with Havana.

US-Cuba relations

Washington and Havana have had strained relations for greater than 60 years since Castro and his crew of armed revolutionaries overthrew a US-backed dictatorship.

The US authorities tried to take away Castro after this in what was known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, and thru a number of assassination makes an attempt over the next a long time.

In 1962, Cuba additionally allowed the Soviet Union to secretly set up nuclear missiles, which have been detected by US surveillance. This Cuban Missile Disaster led to 13 days of stress, bringing the US and USSR to the brink of nuclear battle.

Whereas former US President Barack Obama took steps to ease tensions with Cuba, former US President Donald Trump reversed a number of of Obama’s steps, banning People from travelling to Cuba and inserting enterprise sanctions on the island.

Present US President Joe Biden has lifted among the Trump-era sanctions on Cuba, however many stay in place, strangling the nation’s financial system.

Furthermore, the United Nations Common Meeting has – on greater than 30 events – handed resolutions with near-unanimity, condemning the US embargo of Cuba. Nonetheless, any significant motion by the UN in opposition to the embargo requires the approval of the Safety Council, the place the US has a veto.