Former US ambassador to Bolivia charged with secretly spying for Cuba

WASHINGTON (CN) — Federal prosecutors have charged a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia with secretly acting as an agent for Cuba over 40 years.

In documents unsealed Monday, prosecutors charged 73-year-old Victor Manuel Rocha of Miami with conspiring to act and acting as an agent of a foreign government without notifying the attorney general, and using a passport obtained by a false statement.

Rocha appeared in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Colombia, he served on the National Security Council in the Bill Clinton administration from 1994 to 1995 and ambassador to Bolivia in the Clinton and Bush administrations from 2000 to 2002.

“This action exposes one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “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. 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.”

Prosecutors say Rocha secretly supported clandestine intelligence-gathering against the United States for Cuba since at least 1981. He worked in the State Department from 1981 to 2002 including positions at the U.S. embassies in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Argentina and Bolivia.

After leaving the State Department, Rocha was an adviser to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, a joint military command with an area of responsibility including Cuba, from 2006 to 2012. He is currently employed as a business adviser for the consulting firm LLYC USA, according to the criminal complaint.

Prosecutors say Rocha specifically sought employment in positions that would provide access to “non-public information and the ability to affect U.S. foreign policy.”

After learning about Rocha’s alleged work, an undercover FBI agent posing as a covert Cuban intelligence official met with him in 2022 and 2023. The majority of the evidence presented in the complaint concerns Rocha’s statements to the undercover agent.

During those meetings, Rocha referred to the United States as “the enemy,” celebrated his “decades” of work over “40 years” for the Cuban government and referred to contacts in Cuban intelligence as his comrades, according to the complaint.

“Like all federal officials, U.S. diplomats swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a press release. “Acting as an agent for Cuba — a hostile foreign power — is a blatant violation of that oath and betrays the trust of the American people.”

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