U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland introduced that Victor Manuel Rocha, the previous U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, has been charged with performing illegally as a international agent for the federal government of Cuba.
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A retired American diplomat made his first court docket look Monday in Miami in a doubtlessly explosive espionage case.
Prosecutors say Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, spent over 40 years spying for Cuba whereas he rose by the State Department, the place he was U.S. ambassador to Bolivia throughout the Clinton administration.
Attorney General Merrick Garland known as Rocha’s case, “one of many highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States authorities by a international agent,” Monday at a press convention.
Rocha has been charged in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida with one depend of Acting as an Illegal Agent of a Foreign Government, one depend of conspiracy to take action and a 3rd depend, Use of a Passport Obtained by a False Statement. The Dec. 1 grievance was unsealed Monday.
But the sworn accounts by FBI brokers paint a a lot larger image of Rocha’s alleged actions than the person expenses convey.
“Beginning no later than roughly 1981, and persevering with to the current, Rocha secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission in opposition to the United States by serving as a covert agent of Cuba’s intelligence companies,” the indictment alleges.
“To additional that function, Rocha obtained and maintained employment within the United States authorities in positions that offered him: (1) entry to nonpublic data, together with categorised data; and (2) the flexibility to have an effect on United States international coverage,” wrote prosecutors.
Rocha was solely apprehended as the results of a yr lengthy undercover FBI operation, in keeping with the DOJ.
Undercover FBI brokers posing as Cuban operatives met with Rocha a number of occasions previously yr, in keeping with the grievance.
The life Rocha allegedly described to them sounded just like the plot of HBO’s spy thriller “The Americans.”
“Since the Direcciön requested me …to guide a traditional life … I’ve – have created the legend of a right-wing particular person,” Rocha allegedly mentioned, referring to the Cuban intelligence companies. Legend is a spycraft time period for the fictional biography a covert agent cultivates to hide their id.
Bolivian President Hugo Banzer shakes arms with Victor Manuel Rocha, the brand new U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, throughout a ceremony within the Goverment Palace in La Paz, August 3, 2000.
Reuters
After leaving his State Department roles, Rocha labored in a number of personal sector jobs, in keeping with the submitting, together with most not too long ago as a senior worldwide enterprise advisor at LLYC USA in Miami. In August, he left his job at regulation agency Foley & Lardner, a spokesperson for the corporate mentioned.
Rocha portrayed the end result of his work as a large success, and “greater than a grand slam.”
“My primary concern; my primary precedence was … any motion on the a part of Washington that will — would endanger the lifetime of — of the management, or the revolution itself,” Rocha mentioned to undercover FBI brokers, in keeping with the grievance.
The grievance cited a number of events when Rocha lied below oath about his loyalty to the U.S. and denied working for any international entities.
As not too long ago as final Friday, in a voluntary interview with State Department officers, Rocha denied ever having met with these Cuban intelligence brokers, who have been really undercover FBI.
Rocha appeared earlier than a federal choose and a bond listening to is scheduled for Wednesday. The DOJ mentioned extra expenses in opposition to Rocha are nonetheless to come back.
“Those who’ve the privilege of serving within the authorities of the United States are given an infinite quantity of belief by the general public we serve,” Garland mentioned. “To betray that belief by falsely pledging loyalty to the United States whereas serving a international energy is against the law that shall be met with the complete drive of the Justice Department.”