INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
(Reuters) - The United States on Monday charged a former ambassador to Bolivia with spying for Cuba for over 40 years, in what the Justice
Department described as one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S
government by a foreign agent.Victor Manuel Rocha, who served as U.S
ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, was charged with committing multiple federal crimes including acting as an illegal foreign agent
Rocha served as an agent of the Cuban government and sought out and obtained positions within the United States government that would
provide him with access to non-public information and the ability to affect U.S
He was not immediately reachable for comment.Rocha worked for the State Department from 1981 to 2002, the Justice Department said
press briefing.In a court document filed in the southern district of Florida, the U.S
accuses Rocha of having secretly supported Cuba and its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against Washington since 1981.Rocha
admitted his decades of work for Cuba in a series of meetings in 2022 and 2023 with an undercover FBI agent who posed as a covert Cuban
General Directorate of Intelligence representative, according to the court document.Source: Reuters--Agencies
