The former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for the Cuban government spent 40 years as a spook and claimed his work was “more than a grand slam.”
Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, was formally charged Monday in Miami federal court. Rocha was arrested on Friday, more than 20 years after his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia.
The FBI finally caught Rocha by having one of its agents pose a contact with Cuba’s intelligence agency.
“What we have done…it’s enormous,” Rocha told the undercover agent, according to an indictment released Monday. “More than a grand slam.”
Rocha joined the State Department in 1981 and worked jobs dealing with Central and South America for the following two decades. From July 1994 to July 1995, he was Director of Inter-American Affairs on the National Security Council, which gave him a direct hand in American policy on Cuba.
After that, he spent two years as Deputy Principal Officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. His highest profile job came from 2000 to 2002, when Bill Clinton named him Ambassador to Bolivia.
During that entire time, Rocha was a Cuban spy, according to federal investigators.
“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 announcing the charges against Rocha.
The FBI started its undercover operation to bust Rocha in November 2022, when the agent messaged Rocha posing as a member of Cuba’s Dirección de Inteligencia, commonly known as the DGI.
Rocha eventually agreed to three meetings with the undercover agent. Throughout the conversations, he referred to the U.S. as “the enemy.”
In referring to his own actions, Rocha told the agent, “what has been done, has strengthened the Revolution. It has strengthened it immensely.”
“They underestimated what we could do to them. We did more than they thought,” Rocha said, according to the indictment against him.
Even after he left the State Department, Rocha worked with the U.S. military from 2006 to 2012, providing advice on Central and South American strategy, including Cuba.
The feds finally showed their cards on Friday, over a year after the investigation began, according to the charging documents. Rocha denied meeting with the undercover agent or ever working for the Cuban government, but he was still arrested.
“However long it might take, we will deliver justice to those who betray their solemn oaths to the American people,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Olsen said.
Joseph Wilkinson
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