A former US ambassador to Bolivia has been charged with secretly appearing as a Cuban agent for “more than 40 years”.
Manuel Rocha, who was arrested at his Miami residence on Friday, served as the highest US diplomat to Bolivia between 2000 and 2002.
Prosecutors from the US Justice Department accuse him of selling the Cuban authorities’s pursuits, Sky’s US associate NBC News reported.
This just isn’t a criminal offense until it’s accomplished on US soil with out registering with the division as a overseas lobbyist, the broadcaster added.
Rocha, 73, appeared in court docket on Monday and is alleged to have begun his “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf in 1981 or earlier.
It was one of many highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US authorities by a overseas agent, division officers stated.
He met Cuban intelligence operators, lied to US authorities officers about his travels and contacts and used a passport obtained by means of a false assertion, prosecutors claimed in court docket paperwork filed in Florida.
The prices mirror a harsher strategy by the division in the direction of the prosecution of illicit overseas lobbying.
During his 25-year profession as a US diplomat, Rocha served as ambassador to Bolivia and held one other senior publish – head of mission – in Argentina.
He labored for the US Interests Section in Havana within the mid-Nineties, a time when the US lacked full diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s communist authorities.
Prosecutors declare Cuba’s notoriously subtle intelligence providers first started utilizing Rocha in 1981 when he first joined the US State Department.
They added that the alleged hyperlinks continued properly after he left authorities service greater than 20 years later.
The FBI realized concerning the relationship final 12 months, it’s alleged, and organized a collection of undercover conferences with an agent posing as a Cuban intelligence operator.
In one encounter in Miami final 12 months, Rocha is alleged to have stated: “I always told myself, ‘The only thing that can put everything we have done in danger is – is … someone’s betrayal, someone who may have met me, someone who may have known something at some point’.”
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Born in Colombia, Rocha joined the US overseas service in 1981.
As ambassador to Bolivia, he warned Bolivians that in the event that they voted for Evo Morales within the upcoming election, the US would lower off assist to the poor South American nation.
Rocha additionally served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and labored as a Latin America knowledgeable for the US National Security Council.
Source: information.sky.com”