A former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia and a National Security Council member was charged after working in opposition to the U.S. authorities for many years for communist Cuba in “clandestine intelligence-gathering missions.”
“This action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland stated.
“We allege that for over 40 years, Victor Manuel Rocha served as an agent of the Cuban government and sought out and obtained positions within the United States government that would provide him with access to non-public information and the ability to affect U.S. foreign policy,” Garland stated. “Those who have the privilege of serving in the government of the United States are given an enormous amount of trust by the public we serve. To betray that trust by falsely pledging loyalty to the United States while serving a foreign power is a crime that will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”
Victor Manuel Rocha’s profession in covert work started in 1980, earlier than his gorgeous fall from grace in 2012.
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Victor Manuel Rocha is seen posing for a photograph at a Miami workplace in January 2003. (Raul Rubiera/Miami Herald/The Associated Press)
According to a launch from the Department of Justice, Rocha is a naturalized U.S. citizen initially from Colombia.
The 73-year-old allegedly secretly supported Cuba and its “clandestine intelligence-gathering mission” in opposition to the United States by working as a covert agent for Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence.
According to a legal grievance from the DOJ, Rocha used his employment within the U.S. Department of State between 1981 and 2002, to acquire categorized info and have an effect on U.S. international coverage.
Following his employment on the Department of State, Rocha transferred in 2006 as an advisor to the Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, a joint command of the United States army whose space of accountability consists of Cuba.
Former US ambassador arrested in Florida, accused of serving as an agent of Cuba, AP supply says (Gonzalo Espinoza/AFP by way of Getty Images)
The grievance alleges that Rocha stored his standing as a Cuban agent secret to be able to shield himself and others and to permit himself the chance to have interaction in extra “clandestine activity.”
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The DOJ stated that Rocha offered false and deceptive info to the U.S. to keep up his secret standing, traveled exterior the U.S. to fulfill with Cuban intelligence operatives, and made false and deceptive statements to acquire journey paperwork.
According to the grievance, Rocha made a sequence of recorded admissions to an undercover FBI agent who posed as a Cuban intelligence operative who reached out to Rocha on WhatsApp, saying that he had a message, “from your friends in Havana.”
Rocha praised the late communist chief Fidel Castro, calling him “comandante,” branded the U.S. the “enemy” and bragged about his service for greater than 40 years as a Cuban mole within the coronary heart of U.S. international coverage circles.
Rocha additionally described his work as a Cuban agent as “a grand slam.”
Rocha was charged with conspiring to behave as an agent of a international authorities with out prior notification to the Attorney General; appearing as an agent of a international authorities with out prior notification to the Attorney General; and with utilizing a passport obtained by false assertion.
This picture offered by the Justice Department and contained within the affidavit in help of a legal grievance, reveals Victor Manuel Rocha throughout a gathering with an FBI undercover worker. (Department of Justice by way of AP)
During a listening to in federal courtroom in Miami on Thursday, Rocha stated he had agreed to plead responsible to 2 expenses of conspiring to behave as an agent of a international authorities, based on The Associated Press.
Prosecutors agreed to dismiss greater than a dozen different expenses in trade for his responsible plea, the AP stated.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/former-us-ambassador-nsc-member-charged-acting-secret-agent-communist-cuba-decades-doj
