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 appearing as an agent of Cuba, in what the US Division of Justice has referred to 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 towards Washington for greater than 4 many years, together with throughout a 20-year profession within the US Division of State.

“Right now’s plea brings an finish to greater than 4 many years 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 no less than 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 many years of labor for Cuba, based on a courtroom doc. The agent referred to 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 overseas coverage circles, prosecutors mentioned in courtroom data.

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

US officers have mentioned they could by no means know the total 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 workforce of armed revolutionaries overthrew a US-backed dictatorship.

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

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

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 putting enterprise sanctions on the island.

Present US President Joe Biden has lifted a number of 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 towards the embargo requires the approval of the Safety Council, the place the US has a veto.