Former US envoy to Bolivia detained and charged with acting as Cuban agent – Washington – A former top U.S. diplomat who most recently served as America’s ambassador to Bolivia was arrested Friday and charged with acting as a foreign agent of Cuba, according to court documents.
Victor Manuel Rocha, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Cuba, who currently lives in Miami, allegedly spied on behalf of Cuba’s intelligence agency, beginning as early as 1981 through the present day. Prosecutors accused Rocha of referring to the U.S. as “the enemy” and supporting Cuba’s clandestine intelligence-gathering mission.
The indictment doesn’t specify which information Rocha allegedly shared with the Cubans during the decades he was working with them, but charging documents describe an ongoing relationship he fostered with Cuban handlers.
Rocha, working with unnamed conspirators inside Cuba’s intelligence community, allegedly “agreed to act and did act as a clandestine agent of the Cuban government,” charging documents revealed.
Investigations revealed that Rocha had access to sensitive information as an employee of the State Department, despite being required to “affirm his loyalties to the United States and absence of covert activity on behalf of any foreign nation.”
Over three meetings in 2022 and 2023, investigators allege Rocha discussed his decades-long partnership with Cuban intelligence, revealing his work with them to an undercover FBI agent.
Rocha is set to appear in federal court for an initial appearance Monday afternoon in Miami.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said at an event Monday, “This action exposes one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.”
The Cuban Embassy did not respond to a request for comment, and Rocha’s attorney also did not immediately return the request for comment.
Rocha’s initial appearance in court took place Monday, and he will be arraigned later this month.
The charges against Rocha come almost a year after another a Cuban spy was freed from prison after more than 20 years behind bars.
