Victor Manuel Rocha, who was U.S. ambassador to several Latin American countries, was arrested and will be tried in a Miami court on charges of spying for the Cuban government, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported.
Rocha, 73 years old and Colombian, is accused of committing multiple federal crimes by acting secretly for decades as an agent of the government of the Republic of Cuba, the U.S. government says in a statement.
“This action exposes one of the most far-reaching and durable infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent,” said U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. – Garland.
For more than 40 years, Victor Manuel Rocha served as an agent of the Cuban government and sought and obtained positions within the United States Government that would provide him with access to non-public information and the ability to affect the foreign policy of the United States, the prosecutor said.According to the statement, the former employee of the United States Department of State served on the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 and was U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002.
According to the complaint, from approximately 1981 and continuing to the present, Rocha, who had U.S. citizenship, secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the United States serving as an undercover agent.
Accusations against Victor Manuel Rocha
At a press conference, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stressed that Rocha has been no longer working for the U.S. diplomatic service for more than 20 years.
Miller praised the work of the Attorney General’s Office and the FBI in the indictment against Rocha and assured that the State Department will work with the intelligence services to analyze the implications for national security – of this case.
Rocha served from 1995 to 1997 as Deputy Chief Officer of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, as well as Director of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council in Washington.
The now accused studied in the United States, including at the Taft School and the universities of Yale, Harvard and Georgetown, and worked as a U.S. official and diplomat in delegations from several countries, including Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, as well as in Italy.
“For decades, Rocha allegedly worked as an undercover agent for Cuba and abused his position of trust in the U.S. government to promote the interests of a foreign power,” Deputy Attorney General Matthew G said for his input. Olsen of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division.
This article has been translated from the original which first appeared on EFE