Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave
The Justice Department unsealed charges Monday against a retired ambassador, accusing him of being a “clandestine agent” for decades — allegedly betraying his country by acting covertly on behalf of Cuba’s spy agency.
The arrest of 73-year-old Manuel Rocha capped an undercover sting operation that lasted more than a year, in which an FBI agent pretending to be a Cuban intelligence operative secretly recorded Rocha making incriminating statements about his life of diplomatic deception.
Attorney General Merrick Garland called the Rocha case “one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” adding that in those secretly-recorded conversations, Rocha repeatedly referred to the U.S. as “the enemy.”
Court papers filed in Miami describe a series of meetings in which Rocha discussed his secret work for Cuba, including one where he said that the “Direccion” — a reference to that country’s General Directorate of Intelligence — “asked me … to lead a normal life.”
Rocha allegedly said he followed that instruction by creating a public reputation as “a right wing person,” when he in fact was committed to the cause of communist Cuba.
A former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia was charged with serving as a secret agent for Cuba dating back decades, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Dec. 4. (Video: The Washington Post)
At one secretly recorded meeting between Rocha and the undercover agent, the suspect allegedly described how he became a State Department employee: “I went little by little. … It was a very meticulous process. … I knew exactly how to do it and obviously the Direccion accompanied me. … They knew that I knew how to do it.”
Rocha was born in Colombia and became a U.S. citizen in 1978. He joined the State Department in 1981. The criminal complaint against him says that at least as early as that year, he “secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the United States by serving as a covert agent of Cuba’s intelligence services.”
Rocha pushed false and misleading information within the U.S. government, authorities say, and met with Cuban intelligence operatives. In the secretly recorded conversations with the undercover FBI agent, Rocha allegedly insisted he was still committed to the revolutionary cause of communist Cuba, according to the court papers unsealed Monday. Rocha’s arrest late last week was first reported by the Associated Press.
Over the years, Rocha rose through the ranks of the State Department to serve in positions at the U.S. embassies in the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Mexico, and Argentina before ascending to more sensitive government posts.
From mid-1994 to mid-1995, Rocha served on the U.S. National Security Council, with a portfolio that included Cuba.
Last year, Cubans took to the streets. Now they’re fleeing the island.
From 1999 until 2002, Rocha served as the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia.
That job and others gave him access to U.S. government secrets, including classified information. Authorities say Rocha repeatedly lied when answering security questions that determined whether he could keep those jobs.
“Those who have the privilege of serving in the government of the United States are given an enormous amount of trust by the public we serve,” Garland told reporters. “To betray that trust by falsely pledging loyalty to the United States while serving a foreign power is a crime that will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”
From 2006 to 2012, Rocha served as an adviser to military officials at U.S. Southern Command — a part of the military whose area of responsibility includes Cuba.
The charging documents don’t describe how the FBI came to suspect Rocha was a secret agent — only that the agency received a tip about him “prior to November 2022.”
Rocha is charged with conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the Justice Department, acting as an agent of a foreign government without such notification; and lying to obtain a passport.
He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge, and he is expected to make a brief court appearance Monday.