A former ambassador to Bolivia has been charged by United States prosecutors for secretly working for the Cuban government and supporting its mission in collecting intelligence.
According to unsealed court documents, Victor Manuel Rocha, who served in various roles within the State Department, had been acting as a spy for more than four decades.
Rocha was allegedly arrested last week in Miami, Florida on a criminal complaint and was charged with committing multiple federal crimes.
“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 said.
Rocha, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Colombia, reportedly spent 40 years working as an agent on behalf of Havana while seeking out and holding positions within the U.S. government to gain access to classified information.
During a series of meetings over the past year, Rocha has admitted to his decades of work as a Cuban intelligence agent to an undercover FBI agent who posed as a covert Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence representative.
“I have to protect what we did because what we did…the cement that has strengthened the last 40 years,” Rocha allegedly told the undercover agent during their second meeting, “What we have done…it’s enormous…More than a grand slam.”
