Spies among us
-
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/former-us-ambassador-charged-spying-172434170.html
A former US ambassador to Bolivia and member of the National Security Council has been charged with spying for Cuba for 40 years, the Justice Department announced Monday.
The charges against Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, "exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement explaining the charges.
Rocha, a naturalized US citizen originally from Colombia, allegedly began aiding Havana as a "covert agent of Cuba's General Directorate of Intelligence" in 1981, and his espionage activities continued to the present, the statement said.
His government posts offered him access to non-public information, including classified information, and the ability to "affect US foreign policy," the government said in its statement.
The charges against him include: conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government; acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior government consent; and using a US passport obtained by making false statements.
Rocha allegedly admitted his activities to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban operative.
"Throughout the meetings, Rocha behaved as a Cuban agent, consistently referring to the United States as 'the enemy,' and using the term 'we' to describe himself and Cuba," the Justice Department said.
Rocha praised late Cuban leader Fidel Castro and described his work for Cuba as "a grand slam," the statement said.
-
A former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and a National Security Council member pleaded guilty on Friday to secretly acting for decades as an agent of the government of the Republic of Cuba, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
A federal judge sentenced Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, of Miami, to 15 years in prison for working against the U.S. government for decades for communist Cuba in "clandestine intelligence-gathering missions."
