The former United States ambassador Victor Manuel Rochaaccused of spying for Cuba for 40 years, was arrested in Miami after confessing his activities to an FBI agent posing as another Cuban spy.
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According to the indictment, to which EFE had access this Tuesday, between 2022 and 2023 there were three meetings between Rocha and an FBI special agent who pretended to be ‘Miguel’, a representative of the General Directorate of Intelligence of Cuba.
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In those meetings, which were recorded and held in Spanish, the former diplomat constantly referred to the United States as “the enemy” and confessed that his greatest concern when he worked for the State Department was “strengthening the Cuban Revolution.”
Rocha, born on October 23, 1950 in Colombia, has American and Dominican citizenship and worked for more than two decades for the United States Government.
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Between 1981 and 2002, He was an employee of the State Department and held various positions in the United States embassies in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico and Argentina..
He worked in the United States representative office in Cuba from 1995 to 1997 and was ambassador to Bolivia between 1999 and 2002, under the governments of Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr.
Rocha was also director of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council between 1994 and 1996, and an advisor from 2005 to 2012 to the United States Southern Command, the military command whose area of responsibility includes Cuba.
The Justice Department accuses him of having spied for Cuba for more than 40 years, since he joined the State Department in 1981 until today.
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According to the indictment, During his career in the US Administration, Rocha “had access to classified information” and “the ability to alter the foreign policy” of the country..
Additionally, he was lying for years in several internal interviews in which he swore allegiance to the United States and answered “no” when asked if he worked for a foreign country.
The FBI began to suspect Rocha in 2022 and an undercover agent contacted him in November of that year via WhatsApp to send him “a message from his friends in Havana.”
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Both met on the morning of November 16, 2022 in front of the First Presbyterian Church of Miami, the first of three meetings in which he confessed to his espionage activities for the Cuban Government.
In those meetings, Rocha repeated several times that he remained a “comrade” of the Cuban Government and explained that in the United States he posed as “a far-right man” so as not to be discovered..
My number one concern was any action by Washington that put the life of the leadership or the Revolution itself at risk.
“My number one concern was any action by Washington that put the life of the leadership or the Revolution itself at risk,” Rocha reportedly confessed.
He assured that everything he did served to “strengthen the Revolution,” which dealt “several great blows” to the United States and praised the figure of Fidel Casto, whom he called “commander.”
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He also explained that his last trip to Cuba was in “2016 or 2017” and that He entered the island using his Dominican passport with a prior stopover in Panama.
After these meetings, agents from the United States Diplomatic Security Services showed up at his home to question him, but Rocha completely denied having contacted any Cuban agent.
When shown a photo of one of the meetings, he said that Cuban intelligence had contacted him but that it had only been once.
EFE
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