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  • Spies for Cuba a danger to U.S. national security as American secrets are sold around the world

    Spies for Cuba a danger to U.S. national security as American secrets are sold around the world

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    Last month a career American ambassador pleaded guilty to spying for the intelligence service of Cuba. Victor Manuel Rocha served his country in positions that required the highest levels of security clearance. For 40 years, he was a covert agent. Before Ambassador Rocha was exposed, there was another prolific Cuban spy named Ana Montes, a Pentagon official, who was the lead analyst on Cuba policy. She spied for 17 years. But, Cuban spy craft isn’t just a relic of the Cold War. It’s a real and present danger to U.S. national security. It turns out, Cuba’s main export isn’t cigars or rum, it’s American secrets—which they barter and sell to America’s enemies around the world. 

    It was 1999 and then first lady Hillary Clinton danced with the president of Argentina at a state dinner. President Clinton also danced the tango across the White House ballroom.

    There in front wearing glasses and the airs of an aristocrat… stood Victor Manuel Rocha. He was the number two diplomat at the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires with an impeccable reputation as a senior statesman on Latin America. He served on the National Security Council and became the ambassador to Bolivia—seen here alongside that country’s president—all that time while having the highest top secret security clearance, with access to the most sensitive U.S. intelligence.

    But last December, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Rocha’s arrest. He was charged with spying for Cuba for his entire career. 

    Merrick Garland: This action exposes one of the highest reaching and longest lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.

    In 2022, a man claiming to be a Cuban intelligence officer contacted Rocha and asked to meet. Rocha agreed—he had no idea the man was an undercover FBI agent. Over three meetings in Miami, the FBI recorded Rocha with a hidden camera. And according to the complaint, Rocha bragged that he got away with decades of spying by memorizing the secrets he stole… Rocha told the agent,  “what we have done…it’s enormous…more than a grand slam.” He called the U.S. quote “the enemy” 

    Cecilia Vega: What do you think is the extent of damage that he did to national security?

    Brian Latell: Manuel Rocha did enormous damage to– to American security. 

    Brian Latell was the CIA’s top Cuba analyst at the height of the Cold War. He says in the 1980s, Rocha cold called  and struck up a professional relationship. They remained friends for decades.

    Cecilia Vega: You think he approached you to get information out of you, ultimately.

    Brian Latell: Yes. He never got any.

    Brian Latell
    Brian Latell was the CIA’s top Cuba analyst at the height of the Cold War.

    60 Minutes


    Cecilia Vega: Did you see any signs that he was leading a double life?

    Brian Latell: None.

    Cecilia Vega: None?

    Brian Latell: None.

    Cecilia Vega: What can you tell me about the trade craft that Cuba uses?

    Brian Latell: They do it very, very well, in– mostly rudimentary fashions. The Cubans are not flying satellites anywhere in the world. Nearly all of their ability and– and success has been in the dimension of human intelligence. Their officers, their intelligence agents and officers are very, very good.

    Brian Latell: They know their tradecraft. They practice it with great skill and with discipline. And when they recruit, they’re very careful about how they recruit and how they communicate.

    Cecilia Vega: And what does Cuba do with the information it gets from all these spies?

    Cecilia Vega: They have no scruples about sharing the information or perhaps marketing it, selling it to– to other countries, the Russians, maybe the Chinese

    Brian Latell: If they collect information about U.S. intentions, policy intentions toward Moscow or Beijing or Tehran, it would be of interest to those countries.

    That was this man’s job when he was a Cuban intelligence officer, decoding messages intercepted from the us. Jose Cohen defected in 1994.  

    Jose Cohen (English translation):  Cuba shared that information with enemies of the United States, he told us. Countries like the Soviet Union for years, countries like North Korea, countries like Iran, had information about the operation of the Defense Department.

    Cecilia Vega: You say Cuba may not have the weapons, Cuba may not have the arms, but they sell these secrets to the enemies of the United States?

    Jose Cohen (English translation): The strongest enemies of the United States. All of that was what made me realize this is a battle between good and evil. Cuba was at the service of all the enemies of the United States.

    Cecilia Vega and Jose Cohen
    Cecilia Vega and Jose Cohen

    60 Minutes


    After Jose Cohen set foot on U.S. soil he shared a vital piece of information with the FBI. That led to the investigation of more than 100 suspected Cuban agents and illegal officers and ultimately one very important spy. Cohen handed over an encryption key- like this one, used by Cuban spies to send and receive secret messages with Havana.

    Three nights a week at 9 p.m. and then again at 10, a series of numbered codes was broadcast out of Havana. 

    The signal could be heard for most of the 1990s up the East Coast as far north as Maine. But the coded messages were only meant to be decoded by their agents—including a Pentagon analyst named Ana Montes—who lived in this quiet Washington neighborhood.

    Cecilia Vega: This is where she did all of the business, all of the spy business?

    Peter Lapp: Exactly. I mean, she would listen to the high frequency messages upstairs. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday nights, she would type up her messages on her computer in her bedroom, right up here. This is the area that she– lived in, camouflaged. The fact that she was committing espionage right here–

    Peter Lapp is a retired FBI special agent who was on the team that led the Montes investigation.   

    Cecilia Vega: How’d she do it?

    Peter Lapp: She went to work, memorized three things every day, went home and– all classified, and then would write them up or type them up. And then every two or three weeks, she would meet in person at lunch, broad daylight, two to three hours over lunch

    Cecilia Vega: Maybe I’ve seen too many movies. When I think “spies,” I’m thinking dark of night, park bench, secret cameras, fancy gadgets. That wasn’t her.

    Peter Lapp: Everyone who works for the intelligence community goes home with classified information in their head. And you can’t stop that with guards and technology. It’s just– it’s– it’s undefeatable.

    Lapp wrote a book on the FBI investigation into Montes. He told us Havana doesn’t pay its spies, so Americans who spy for Cuba don’t do it for money, but rather are driven by ideology. Ambassador Rocha was recruited  in the late 1970s, influenced, he now says, by the radical politics of the day. Montes was a student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in the 1980s and was outspoken about her anger toward U.S. policy in Latin America when she was recruited by a Cuban intelligence officer.

    Montes’ father was a U.S. Army doctor and her siblings worked for the FBI. One of her first jobs out of graduate school was as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

    Ana Montes
    Ana Montes

    DIA


    Cecilia Vega: So Ana Montes was already a full-fledged Cuban spy from the moment that she set foot inside the Defense Intelligence Agency.

    Peter Lapp: She walked in fully recruited, day one. Only went to DIA for the purpose of spying for the Cubans. And when you think about the other folks that have been arrested for espionage, most start loyal. They take the oath. They intend to abide by that oath. But then something happens and they flip. And Ana’s unique in the sense that she walked in from day one, and was an insider threat, and– and only went for the purpose of spying for the Cubans.

    Cecilia Vega: How does a Cuban spy walk through the doors of the DIA and get a job? She didn’t have to take a polygraph?

    Peter Lapp: They did not have a polygraph program at the time.

    Over the course of her career, she became such an expert that she was known in the intelligence community as the Queen of Cuba. All the while she was exposing national secrets to Havana- the FBI surveilled her for a year before her arrest as she walked to work and called her Cuban handler. By that time she had revealed the existence of a top secret satellite program used by the U.S. to spy on other countries. She also gave Havana the names of 450 American intelligence officials working on Latin American issues– including four undercover officers stationed in Cuba.

    And she got away with it for 17 years– until she was arrested in 2001 at her office by FBI Special Agent Peter Lapp and his partner Stephen McCoy.

    Cecilia Vega: She didn’t fit the profile of a typical spy.

    Peter Lapp: No. Being a woman is incredibly unique, so it doesn’t fit that typical what we would look for in a spy, which is mostly men.

    Montes pleaded guilty to espionage and in exchange for not spending the rest of her life in prison, she agreed to tell the FBI everything she had done.

    Through a public records request, we obtained this footage, seen here for the first time, of Montes wearing prison stripes– speaking with FBI investigators. Citing Montes’ right to privacy, the FBI denied our request for the recorded audio of their interviews. But we obtained a declassified transcript of the first day where Montes described how deep in she was. She said:

    Ana Montes (Cecilia Vega reads from transcript): Ever since I started helping the Cubans, there’s been no half-way…I don’t really know how a person does it without feeling morally bound…It’s a full commitment, mentally, physically, emotionally.

    I feel that what I did was morally right. That I was faithful to principles that were right.

    Montes told the agents her only regret was that she was forced to cooperate with the FBI as part of her plea deal.

    Ana Montes (Cecilia Vega reads from transcript): It’s tearing me up….But if the only way I’m going to see my family again… It’s the only way.  

    Agent Lapp sat across from Ana Montes in the interrogation room for seven months. He said one of the most sobering moments was when she said how far she would have been willing to go for the Cubans in the week after 9/11. 

    Peter Lapp, a retired FBI special agent
    Peter Lapp, a retired FBI special agent

    60 Minutes


    Peter Lapp: She said “if the Cubans asked me to provide them with intelligence about what we were doing in Afghanistan, I absolutely would have done that. And if men and women were killed as a result of my intelligence in Afghanistan,” she told us,”that’s the risk that they took.”

    Cecilia Vega: What was the extent of the damage that she did? 

    Peter Lapp: I do think she’s in that tier of some of the most notorious spies in American history and I think the damage that she did was incredibly significant.

    After serving 20 years in federal prison, Ana Montes was released in January 2023. She’s now living in Puerto Rico where she has family and  has been celebrated by some as a hero…seen  here recently receiving an award from supporters. Through a lawyer, Montes declined our request for an interview. 

    Last month, former ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha told a judge he was deeply sorry and pleaded guilty to acting as an agent of the Cuban government. At age 73, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison and is currently cooperating with investigators.  Just how many state secrets he gave to Cuba, we may never know. Nearly all the details of his spy craft remain classified.

    Ana Montes has yet to publicly express any remorse. 

    Cecilia Vega: Do you think there are other Ana Monteses in the government right now?

    Peter Lapp: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 

    Cecilia Vega: That’s chilling.

    Peter Lapp: There’s no doubt that the Cubans and the Russians and others– are still penetrating our government with individuals who are loyal to them and not to us. 

    Produced by Michael Rey. Associate producers, Jaime Woods and Kit Ramgopal. Broadcast associate, Katie Jahns. Edited by Joe Schanzer.

    Cecilia Vega


    headshot-600-cecilia-vega.jpg

    Cecilia Vega is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and “60 Minutes” correspondent who joined the CBS newsmagazine in 2023.

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  • Cuban Spycraft | Sunday on 60 Minutes

    Cuban Spycraft | Sunday on 60 Minutes

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    Cuban Spycraft | Sunday on 60 Minutes – CBS News


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    For decades, prolific Cuban spies working in the U.S. government, serving in high-profile positions with top security clearances, have evaded American intelligence officials. This Sunday, Cecilia Vega reports on two undercover agents.

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  • U.S. removes Cuba from list of countries ‘not cooperating fully’ with anti-terrorism efforts

    U.S. removes Cuba from list of countries ‘not cooperating fully’ with anti-terrorism efforts

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    Oleksii Liskonih

    Getty Images/iStockphoto

    In a policy step to ease pressure on Cuba, the Biden administration removed the communist island from the roster of countries “not cooperating fully” with anti-terrorist efforts, a list the U.S. State Department issues every year.

    According to the certification sent to Congress by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday, the State Department determined that “the circumstances for Cuba’s certification as a ‘not fully cooperating country’ have changed from 2022 to 2023,” and that the department is no longer keeping Cuba on that list.

    A State Department spokesperson said Cuba’s “refusal to engage” with Colombia on extradition requests for National Liberation Army guerrilla members who were in Havana for peace talks “supported” Cuba’s certification in 2022. But in August 2022, Colombian President Gustavo Petro ordered Colombia’s Attorney General to suspend the arrest warrants against 17 ELN commanders, including those in Cuba.

    “Moreover, the United States and Cuba resumed law enforcement cooperation in 2023, including on counterterrorism,” the spokesperson said. “Therefore, the Department determined that Cuba’s continued certification as a ‘not fully cooperating country’ was no longer appropriate.”

    The State Department said that four countries – the North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela – were certified as “not fully cooperating” in 2023.

    Cuba remains on a separate, more important list of state sponsors of terrorism — also kept by the State Department — since the Trump administration included it in 2021.

    In the notice sent Wednesday to Congress, the State Department said that the designation of state sponsors of terrorism “is wholly separate” from the certification process of countries seen as not cooperating enough with U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

    “U.S. law establishes specific statutory criteria for rescinding” a state sponsor of terrorism designation, the notice said. Any review of Cuba’s status on that list “would be based on the law and the criteria established by Congress.”

    A section the U.S. Arms Export Control Act was amended in 1996 to give authority to the secretary of state to determine which countries are not doing enough to cooperate with the United States in preventing terrorism. The U.S. cannot sell or license defense equipment or services to those countries. The section is one of the four laws used by the secretary of state to designate countries that “have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism” as state sponsors of terrorism, according to the Department’s website.

    The immediate effects of removing Cuba from the annual list of those not cooperating on counterterrorism are unclear. The United States does not sell weapons to Cuba anyway because the U.S. embargo prohibits it, and the country is still officially considered a sponsor of terrorism.

    The removal comes after the Cuban government has signaled it is not willing to take a first step to improve relations with the United States, including releasing any of about 1,000 political prisoners it is currently holding, if the Biden administration does not remove Cuba from the list of states sponsoring terrorism first.

    In a long interview published Monday on Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel made that position explicit.

    “We do not ask for favors, nor do we have to make any gesture to have the blockade removed; it is simply a right of the Cuban people,” he said.

    In the interview with Spanish left-leaning journalist and activist Ignacio Ramonet, Diaz-Canel denied there has been a crackdown on people criticizing his government (“protesting against the Revolution is not met with a repressive response”) despite the number of people Cuba has detained and convicted for protesting, and did not take responsibility for the severe economic crisis Cubans have endured under his watch, blaming instead U.S. sanctions and Cuba’s designation as a sponsor of terrorism for the debacle.

    Reactions in Miami

    Despite the State Department’s assurances, Cuban-American members of Congress from Miami immediately criticized Cuba’s removal from the “not fully coopeating” list, fearing it might be a first step towards a potential delisting of the island as a sponsor of terror.

    “This latest move is, without a doubt, another sign that the Biden Administration is paving the way to remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terror,” said Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs.

    “How is it possible that a dictatorship that finances terrorism in Latin America, supports Hamas and harbors international terrorists in its territory ‘cooperates’ with the United States on anti-terrorism?” Salazar said in a statement. Cuba has provided asylum to several fugitives of U.S. justice it deems as political refugees, an issue that has been an obstacle to better relations.

    “The White House is either being naive or is actively complicit with the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime,” Salazar said.

    Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a senior member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said he has already reached out to the State Department to get answers about this “absurd move.”

    “President Biden is making it abundantly clear he wants to remove the Cuban dictatorship from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The criminal and illegitimate regime in Havana supports foreign terrorist organizations in Colombia, and harbors ETA terrorists and fugitives wanted by American courts.”

    In a posting on X, Rep. Carlos Giménez of Miami used capital letters to say that Cuba “must remain” on the list of states sponsoring terrorism.

    “The dictatorship supports Hamas, Hezbollah, Putin’s illegal invasion of Russia, repression in Venezuela and Nicaragua,” he said. “They should be treated like the outcasts they are!”

    Nora Gámez Torres is the Cuba/U.S.-Latin American policy reporter for el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald. She studied journalism and media and communications in Havana and London. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from City, University of London. Her work has won awards by the Florida Society of News Editors and the Society for Professional Journalists.//Nora Gámez Torres estudió periodismo y comunicación en La Habana y Londres. Tiene un doctorado en sociología y desde el 2014 cubre temas cubanos para el Nuevo Herald y el Miami Herald. También reporta sobre la política de Estados Unidos hacia América Latina. Su trabajo ha sido reconocido con premios de Florida Society of News Editors y Society for Profesional Journalists.

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  • Notable US Spies Fast Facts | CNN

    Notable US Spies Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at some US citizens who have been convicted of spying against the United States.

    1962 – Aldrich Ames, son of a CIA analyst, joins the agency as a low-level documents analyst.

    1967-1968 – Enters the Career Trainee Program at the CIA and becomes an operations officer.

    1970s – Specializes in Soviet/Russian intelligence services.

    April 16, 1985 – Volunteers to spy against the United States to KGB agents at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. He receives a payment of $50,000.

    1986-1989 – Ames is stationed in Rome and continues to pass information to Soviet agents. He is paid approximately $1.8 million during this period.

    Late 1980s – The CIA and FBI learn that a number of Russian double agents have been arrested and some executed.

    May 1993 – The FBI begins investigating Ames, with both physical and electronic surveillance.

    February 21, 1994 – Ames and his wife, Rosario, are arrested in Arlington, Virginia, by the FBI, accused of spying for the Soviet Union and later, Russia. It is estimated that Ames has received approximately $2.5 million from Russia and the Soviet Union for his years of spying.

    April 28, 1994 – Ames pleads guilty and is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In October 1994, Ames’ wife receives 63 months in prison.

    October 31, 1995 – CIA Director John Deutch testifies before Congress about the scope of Ames’ espionage. He states that more than 100 US spies were compromised and that tainted intelligence was given to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

    1970-1991 – David Boone serves in the US Army as a signals intelligence analyst. During the late 1980s, he is assigned to the National Security Agency as a senior cryptologic traffic analyst.

    October 1988 – In the midst of a divorce and financial problems, Boone goes to the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC, and offers to spy on the United States. He is paid about $20,000 a year for his work over the next three years. He continues spying after being transferred to a post in Germany.

    1991 – Boone loses his security clearance and retires from the Army, remaining in Germany.

    1998 – He is contacted by a retired FBI agent posing as a Russian agent. The agent meets with Boone in London and the United States and pays him $9,000 to return to spying for Russia.

    October 14, 1998 – Boone is charged with passing defense documents to the Soviet Union. He pleads guilty in December 1998.

    February 26, 1999 – He is sentenced to 24 years in prison.

    January 14, 2020 – Boone is released from prison.

    1996 – Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins makes visits to Russia to meet with their intelligence agents. He is given a code name and signs a settlement “attesting that he wanted to serve” them.

    1998-2005 – Debbins joins the Army, where he serves in chemical units before being selected for the US Army Special Forces.

    August 21, 2020 – The Department of Justice announces that Debbins has been charged with providing information about US national defenses to Russian agents.

    May 14, 2021 – The DOJ announces that Debbins is sentenced to 188 months in federal prison for conspiring with Russian agents to provide them with US defense intelligence.

    1968-1986 – Noshir Gowadia is employed by Northrop Grumman where he works on technology relating to the B-2 Spirit Bomber, aka the “Stealth” bomber.

    July 2003-June 2005 – Travels to China six times to “provide defense services in the form of design, test support and test data analysis of technologies to assist the PRC with a cruise missile system by developing a stealthy exhaust nozzle.” He is paid over $100,000 during this period.

    October 2005 – Arrested and charged with passing national defense information to China. Superseding indictments are issued in 2006 and 2007.

    August 9, 2010 – Gowadia is found guilty.

    January 24, 2011 – He is sentenced to 32 years in prison.

    January 12, 1976 – Robert Hanssen joins the FBI.

    1979 – Begins spying for the Soviet Union.

    1980 – Begins working for the counterintelligence unit, focusing on the Soviet Union.

    1981 – Transfers to FBI headquarters, initially tracking white-collar crime and monitoring foreign officials assigned to the United States. He is later assigned to the Soviet Analytical Unit.

    1981 – Hanssen’s wife catches him with classified documents and convinces him to stop spying.

    October 4, 1985 – Resumes spying.

    1991 – Breaks off relations with the KGB.

    1999 – Resumes spying, this time for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

    2000 – The FBI identifies Hanssen from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative. The FBI also obtains the complete original KGB dossier on Hanssen.

    December 2000 – The FBI begins surveillance of Hanssen.

    February 18, 2001 – Hanssen is arrested in a Virginia park after making a drop of classified documents. Agents find a bag nearby containing $50,000 that they believe is Hanssen’s payment for the documents.

    July 6, 2001 – Pleads guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for the government not seeking the death penalty.

    May 10, 2002 – He is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    June 5, 2023 – Hanssen dies in prison.

    1984 – Ana Montes is recruited to spy for Cuba. She is never paid for her spying.

    1985-2001 – She is employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency as an analyst. She is promoted several times, eventually becoming the DIA’s top Cuba analyst.

    Fall 2000 – The FBI and DIA begin investigating Montes.

    September 11, 2001 – In response to attacks on the United States, Montes is named acting division chief, which gives her access to the plans to attack Afghanistan and the Taliban.

    September 21, 2001 – Montes is arrested in Washington, DC, and is charged with conspiracy to deliver defense information to Cuba.

    March 20, 2002 – Pleads guilty to espionage and is sentenced to 25 years in prison.

    January 6, 2023 – Montes is released from prison.

    1977 – Walter Kendall Myers begins working for the US State Department on contract, as an instructor.

    1978 – Myers travels to Cuba and is recruited by Cuban intelligence.

    1979 – Myers and his girlfriend [later his wife], Gwendolyn, begin spying for Cuba. It is believed they receive little to no payment for their services.

    1985 – He is hired by the State Dept. as a senior analyst.

    October 31, 2007 – Myers retires from the State Dept.

    June 4, 2009 – The Myers are arrested.

    November 20, 2009 – He pleads guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit espionage. Gwendolyn Myers pleads guilty to conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information.

    July 16, 2010 – Myers is sentenced to life in prison. His wife is sentenced to 81 months.

    1980 – Harold Nicholson joins the CIA after serving in the United States Army.

    1982-1989 – Nicholson works for the CIA in the Philippines, Thailand and Japan.

    1992-1994 – Deputy Chief of Station/Operations Officer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

    June 1994-November 1996 – Provides Russian Intelligence with sensitive information.

    November 16, 1996 – Arrested at Dulles International Airport carrying classified CIA information.

    November 27, 1996 – Nicholson pleads not guilty.

    June 5, 1997 – He is convicted of espionage and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

    2008 – Nicholson’s son, Nathaniel, is arrested on charges he met with Russian agents to collect money owed to his father.

    January 18, 2011 – Harold Nicholson is sentenced to an additional eight years in prison on charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Nathaniel Nicholson is sentenced to five years probation.

    1965-1979 – Ronald Pelton works for the National Security Agency, with top-level security clearance.

    1979 – Pelton leaves the NSA due to financial problems.

    January 1980 – After declaring bankruptcy in 1979, Pelton begins spying for the Soviet Union. He discloses classified information on the United States’ ability to intercept Soviet communications.

    November 25, 1985 – After a KGB defector reveals his name, Pelton is arrested and charged with espionage.

    June 5, 1986 – He is convicted of spying.

    December 17, 1986 – Pelton is sentenced to three concurrent life sentences plus 10 years.

    November 24, 2015 – Pelton is released from prison.

    1983-1996 – Earl Edwin Pitts works at the FBI.

    1987-1992 – Pitts passes information on FBI operations to the Soviet Union and Russia.

    1995 – A Russian diplomat at the UN names Pitts as a former spy. FBI agents posing as Russian intelligence officers contact Pitts to attempt to lure him back to spying. Pitts delivers documents in exchange for $65,000.

    December 18, 1996 – Pitts is arrested. He is charged two days later with conspiring and attempting to commit espionage.

    February 28, 1997 – Pleads guilty. At the time, he is only the second agent in the FBI’s history to be found guilty of espionage.

    June 23, 1997 – He is sentenced to 27 years in prison.

    December 20, 2019 – Pitts is released from prison.

    1979 – Pollard is hired to work at the Navy Field Operational Intelligence Office. He had been rejected previously from employment at the CIA due to drug use. His specialty is North America and the Caribbean.

    June 1984 – He begins spying for Israel, passing on information on Arab countries. He earns $1,500-$2,500 a month.

    November 21, 1985 – Pollard is arrested outside the Israeli Embassy after his request for asylum is denied.

    June 4, 1986 – Pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage.

    March 4, 1987 – US District Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr. rejects a plea agreement reached by federal prosecutors and Pollard. Instead, he sentences Pollard to life in prison. Pollard is the only person in US history to receive a life sentence for spying on behalf of a US ally. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have rejected pleas for clemency.

    1995 – Israel grants Pollard citizenship.

    May 11, 1998 – Israel admits for the first time that Pollard was working as its agent.

    2002 – Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Pollard in prison.

    July 28, 2015 – Pollard’s attorney announces that Pollard has been granted parole and will be released in November.

    November 20, 2015 – Pollard is released on parole.

    November 20, 2020 – Pollard completes his parole. A month later Pollard and his wife arrive in Israel to start a new life.

    1969-1994 – George Trofimoff, a naturalized American citizen of Russian parentage, works as a civilian for the US Army at the Joint Interrogation Center in Nuremberg, Germany. He also attains the rank of colonel in the Army reserve.

    1994 – Trofimoff and a priest in the Russian Orthodox church, Igor Susemihl, are arrested in Germany on spying charges. The charges are later dropped.

    1994 – Retires and moves to South Florida.

    June 14, 2000 – Trofimoff is arrested. US Attorney Donna Bucella describes him as “the highest-ranking US military officer ever charged with espionage. He is accused of passing classified information on Soviet and Warsaw Pact military capabilities from 1969-1994. Allegedly, he received payment of over $250,000 during that time.

    June 27, 2001 – He is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. He is later sentenced to life in prison.

    September 19, 2014 – Trofimoff dies in prison.

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  • Victor Manuel Rocha, ex-U.S. ambassador who spied for Cuba for decades, sentenced to 15 years

    Victor Manuel Rocha, ex-U.S. ambassador who spied for Cuba for decades, sentenced to 15 years

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    Washington — A former U.S. ambassador formally pleaded guilty Friday to working for Cuba’s spy service for decades and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, bringing a quick end to a case that prosecutors described as one of the longest-running betrayals of the U.S. government in history.

    Victor Manuel Rocha, the former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was indicted in December on charges that he spied for Cuba’s intelligence agency for more than 40 years. Rocha, who lives in Miami, originally pleaded not guilty in mid-February, then reversed course later that month.

    The case’s resolution was briefly in doubt during a hearing on Friday when U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom questioned whether a plea deal Rocha struck with prosecutors was tough enough, since it lacked restitution for possible victims and did not revoke Rocha’s U.S. citizenship. Prosecutors argued that 15 years was sufficient given the 73-year-old would likely die in prison.

    The plea deal was ultimately amended to include restitution for potential victims, which will be determined at a later time. Denaturalization is also possible as a civil action down the line.

    Rocha’s work for Cuba

    court-sketch-2.jpg
    Victor Rocha appears at a hearing in federal court in Miami on Friday, April 12, 2024.

    Lothar Speer


    Little has been revealed about what Rocha did to help the communist regime or how he may have influenced U.S. policy while he worked for the State Department for two decades. He held high-level security clearances that gave him access to top secret information, according to the indictment, which could have made him a valuable asset to Cuba, which has long had hostile relations with the U.S. 

    But Rocha was not charged with espionage, and instead was accused of acting as a foreign agent, which the Justice Department refers to as “espionage lite.” Acting as a foreign agent carries a shorter prison sentence. 

    Attorney General Merrick Garland has described the case as “one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.” 

    Born in Colombia, Rocha moved to New York when he was 10 years old after his father died. His family lived with his uncle in Harlem, supported by his mother’s job in a sweatshop sewing factory and food stamps. In 1965, a scholarship to attend Taft School, an elite boarding school in Connecticut, changed the trajectory of his life, he told the school’s alumni magazine in 2004. But while there, he experienced discrimination and considered suicide after his closest friend refused to be roommates with him over the color of his skin, he said. 

    Investigators alleged Rocha was recruited by Cuba’s spy agency in Chile in 1973 after he graduated from Yale University. That same year, Chile’s socialist president, Salvador Allende, was ousted in a U.S.-backed coup. 

    He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978 and also holds degrees from Harvard and Georgetown universities. His career at the State Department began in 1981 and included various positions in Latin America. He briefly held an influential role at the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration. His career at the State Department culminated in an ambassadorship in Bolivia from 2000 to 2002. 

    As the ambassador to Bolivia, Rocha warned Bolivians that electing leftist coca farmer Evo Morales, a protege of Fidel Castro, as president would jeopardize U.S. aid to the country. The intervention was credited with helping boost Morales’ standing, and he thanked Rocha for being his “best campaign chief,” the New York Times reported in 2002.

    Cuba also fell under Rocha’s purview during his stint at the National Security Council and while he was posted at the U.S. mission in Havana in the 1990s. After leaving the State Department, he was an adviser to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, whose area of responsibility includes Cuba.

    His positions within the government would have given him compartmentalized access to information involving Cuba, including U.S. assessments of the Cuban regime, biographic profiles, details about covert programs run by the U.S. and diplomatic reports from across the world about the Cubans, according to John Feeley, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama who once considered Rocha a mentor. 

    “He would have been enormously valuable to them,” Feeley told CBS News. 

    The State Department and the intelligence community are assessing the possible damage to national security, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters after Rocha’s arrest. 

    An attorney for Rocha, Jacqueline Arango, did not return a request for comment. 

    “The shock is complete”

    This image provided by the Justice Department and contained in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint shows Victor Manuel Rocha during a meeting with a FBI undercover employee.
    This image provided by the Justice Department and contained in the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint shows Victor Manuel Rocha during a meeting with a FBI undercover employee.

    Department of Justice / AP


    Details about how the FBI began to suspect Rocha had acted as a covert agent for Cuba are unclear, other than it received a tip before November 2022, according to court documents. In the following months, the agency surveilled Rocha as he met with an undercover FBI agent whom he believed to be a representative of Cuba’s spy agency. 

    On Nov. 15, 2022, the undercover agent sent the retired diplomat a WhatsApp message “from your friends in Havana,” the documents said.

    “I know that you have been a great friend of ours since your time in Chile,” the undercover agent told Rocha in a subsequent phone call. The two agreed to meet in person the next day. 

    During their conversations over the next year, Rocha referred to the U.S. as “the enemy” and said “what we have done” was “enormous” and “more than a grand slam,” court documents said. 

    “My number one concern; my number one priority was … any action on the part of Washington that would — would endanger the life of — of the leadership, or the — or the revolution itself,” Rocha allegedly told the undercover agent. 

    The complaint also alleged that Rocha met with his Cuban handlers as recently as 2017, first flying from Miami to the Dominican Republic using his American passport, then using a Dominican passport to fly to Panama and onto Havana.

    Rocha said Cuba’s spy agency had instructed him to “lead a normal life,” and he eventually created a cover story “of a right-wing person” to conceal his double life, according to the complaint. 

    Feeley, who worked under Rocha when he was the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic, said in recent years Rocha became an “over-the-top Donald Trump guy.” The two had kept in touch since their posting in the Dominican Republic, but when Feeley last saw Rocha in 2019, the previously apolitical Rocha had “gone down a Trump-MAGA rabbit hole,” as Feeley put it. 

    “It was really uncomfortable,” Feeley said, adding that he and his former colleagues never suspected it was a cover. “I’ve already been through the whole cycle of grief here. The shock is complete.” 

    Feeley resigned as U.S. ambassador to Panama in 2018 over policy disputes with the Trump administration.

    Rocha did his job well and was generous with his mentoring, but he also had a strong ego and thought he was smarter than others, Feeley said.

    On June 23, 2023, Rocha held his last meeting with the undercover FBI agent at an outdoor food court behind a church in Miami. Prosecutors said Rocha became angry when the agent asked, “Are you still with us?” 

    “I am pissed off,” Rocha allegedly responded, saying it’s “like questioning my manhood. … It’s like you want me to drop them … and show you if I still have testicles.” 

    Why did a septuagenarian who had managed to escape detection for decades and had long been retired from government service bite so easily at the FBI’s outreach?

    “My feeling is that he felt irrelevant,” Feeley said. “You do something for 40 years, it gives you kind of a sense of purpose, and there’s no gold watch at the end of it.” 

    Ivan Taylor contributed reporting.

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  • Detained Americans Fast Facts | CNN

    Detained Americans Fast Facts | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at some recent cases of foreign governments detaining US citizens. For information about missing Americans, see Robert Levinson Fast Facts or POW/MIA in Iraq and Afghanistan Fast Facts.

    Afghanistan

    Ryan Corbett
    August 2022 – Corbett, a businessman whose family lived in Afghanistan for more than a decade prior to the collapse of the Afghan government, returns to Afghanistan on a 10 day trip. Roughly one week into his visit, he was asked to come in for questioning by the local police. Corbett, his German colleague, and two local staff members were all detained. All but Corbett are eventually released. The Taliban has acknowledged holding Corbett, and he has been designated as wrongfully detained by the US State Department.

    China

    Mark Swidan
    November 13, 2012 – Swidan, a businessman from Texas, is arrested on drug related charges by Chinese Police while in his hotel room in Dongguan.

    2013 – Swidan is tried and pleads not guilty.

    2019 – Convicted of manufacturing and trafficking drugs by the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in southern Guangdong province and given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

    April 13, 2023 – The Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court denies Swidan’s appeal and upholds his death penalty.

    Kai Li
    September 2016 – Kai Li, a naturalized US citizen born in China, is detained while visiting relatives in Shanghai.

    July 2018 – He is sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage following a secret trial held in August 2017.

    Iran

    Karan Vafadari
    December 2016 – Karan Vafadari’s family announces that Karan and his wife, Afarin Niasari, were detained at Tehran airport in July. Vafadari, an Iranian-American, and Niasari, a green-card holder, ran an art gallery in Tehran.

    March 2017 – New charges of “attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic and recruiting spies through foreign embassies” are brought against Vafadari and Niasari.

    January 2018 – Vafadari is sentenced to 27 years in prison. Niasari is sentenced to 16 years.

    July 2018 – Vafadari and Niasari are reportedly released from prison on bail while they await their appeals court rulings.

    Russia

    Paul Whelan
    December 28, 2018 – Paul Whelan, from Michigan, a retired Marine and corporate security director, is arrested on accusations of spying. His family says he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.

    January 3, 2019 – His lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, tells CNN Whalen has been formally charged with espionage.

    January 22, 2019 – At his pretrial hearing, Whelan is denied bail. Whelan’s attorney Zherebenkov tells CNN that Whelan was found in possession of classified material when he was arrested in Moscow.

    June 15, 2020 – Whelan is convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

    August 8, 2021 – State news agency TASS reports that Whelan has been released from solitary confinement in the Mordovian penal colony where he is being held.

    Evan Gershkovich
    March 30, 2023 – Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, is detained by Russian authorities and accused of spying. The Wall Street Journal rejects the spying allegations.

    April 3, 2023 – The Russian state news agency TASS reports Gershkovich has filed an appeal against his arrest.

    April 7, 2023 – Gershkovich is formally charged with espionage.

    April 10, 2023 – The US State Department officially designates Gershkovich as wrongfully detained by Russia.

    April 18, 2023 – The Moscow City Court denies his appeal to change the terms of his detention. Gershkovich will continue to be held in a pre-trial detention center at the notorious Lefortovo prison until May 29.

    Saudi Arabia

    Walid Fitaihi
    November 2017 – Dual US-Saudi citizen Dr. Walid Fitaihi is detained at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh along with other prominent Saudis, according to his lawyer Howard Cooper. Fitaihi is then transferred to prison.

    July 2019 – Fitaihi is released on bond.

    December 8, 2020 – Fitaihi is sentenced to six years in prison for charges including obtaining US citizenship without permission.

    January 14, 2021 – A Saudi appeals court upholds Fitaihi’s conviction but reduces his sentence to 3.2 years and suspends his remaining prison term. Fitaihi still faces a travel ban and frozen assets.

    Syria

    Austin Tice
    August 2012 – Tice disappears while reporting near the Syrian capital of Damascus. The Syrian government has never acknowledged that they have Tice in their custody.

    September 2012 – A 43-second video emerges online that shows Tice in the captivity of what his family describe as an “unusual group of apparent jihadists.”

    Majd Kamalmaz
    February 2017 – Kamalmaz is detained at a checkpoint in Damascus. The Syrian government has never acknowledged Kamalmaz is in its custody.

    Cuba

    Alan Gross
    December 2009 – Alan Gross is jailed while working as a subcontractor on a US Agency for International Development project aimed at spreading democracy. His actions are deemed illegal by Cuban authorities. He is accused of trying to set up illegal internet connections on the island. Gross says he was trying to help connect the Jewish community to the internet and was not a threat to the government.

    March 12, 2011 – Gross is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against the Cuban state.

    April 11, 2014 – Ends a hunger strike that he launched the previous week in an effort to get the United States and Cuba to resolve his case.

    December 17, 2014 – Gross is released as part of a deal with Cuba that paves the way for a major overhaul in US policy toward the island.

    Egypt

    16 American NGO Employees
    December 2011 – Egyptian authorities carry out 17 raids on the offices of 10 nongovernmental organizations. The Egyptian general prosecutor’s office claims the raids were part of an investigation into allegations the groups had received illegal foreign financing and were operating without a proper license.

    February 5, 2012 – Forty-three people face prosecution in an Egyptian criminal court on charges of illegal foreign funding as part of an ongoing crackdown on NGOs. Among the American defendants is Sam LaHood, International Republican Institute country director and the son of US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

    February 15, 2012 – The US State Department confirms there are 16 Americans being held, not 19 as the Egyptian government announced.

    February 20, 2012 – South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Arizona Senator John McCain meet with top Egyptian military and political leaders in Cairo.

    March 1, 2012 – Some of the 43 detainees including American, Norwegian, German, Serbian and Palestinian activists leave Cairo after each post two-million Egyptian pounds bail.

    April 20, 2012 – CNN is told Egyptian officials have filed global arrest notices with Interpol for some of the Americans involved in the NGO trial.

    June 4, 2013 – An Egyptian court sentences the NGO workers: 27 workers in absentia to five-year sentences, 11 to one-year suspended jail sentences, and five others to two-year sentences that were not suspended, according to state-run newspaper Al Ahram. Only one American has remained in Egypt to fight the charges, but he also left after the court announced his conviction.

    Iran

    UC-Berkeley Grads
    July 31, 2009 – Three graduates from the University of California at Berkeley, Sarah Shourd of Oakland, California, Shane Bauer, of Emeryville, California, and Joshua Fattal, of Cottage Grove, Oregon, are detained in Iran after hiking along the unmarked Iran-Iraq border in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region.

    August 11, 2009 – Iran sends formal notification to the Swiss ambassador that the three American hikers have been detained. Switzerland represents the United States diplomatic interests in Iran since the United States and Iran do not have diplomatic relations.

    October 2009 – The Iranian government allows a Swiss diplomat to visit the hikers at Evin Prison.

    November 9, 2009 – Iran charges the three with espionage.

    March 9, 2010 – The families of the three detained hikers speak by phone to the hikers for the first time since they were jailed.

    May 20, 2010 – The detainees’ mothers are allowed to visit their children.

    May 21, 2010 – The mothers are allowed a second visit, and the detained hikers speak publicly for the first time at a government-controlled news conference.

    August 5, 2010 – Reports surface that Shourd is being denied medical treatment.

    September 14, 2010 – Shourd is released on humanitarian grounds on $500,000 bail.

    September 19, 2010 – Shourd speaks publicly to the press in New York.

    November 27, 2010 – Two days after Thanksgiving, Fattal and Bauer are allowed to call home for the second time. Each call lasts about five minutes.

    February 6, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer’s trial begins. Shourd has not responded to a court summons to return to stand trial.

    May 4, 2011 – Shourd announces she will not return to Tehran to face espionage charges.

    August 20, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer each receive five years for spying and three years for illegal entry, according to state-run TV. They have 20 days to appeal.

    September 14, 2011 – A Western diplomat tells CNN an Omani official is en route to Tehran to help negotiate the release of Fattal and Bauer. Oman helped secure the release of Shourd in 2010.

    September 21, 2011 – Fattal and Bauer are released from prison on bail of $500,000 each and their sentences are commuted. On September 25, they arrive back in the United States.

    Saeed Abedini
    September 26, 2012 – According to the American Center for Law and Justice, Saeed Abedini, an American Christian pastor who was born in Iran and lives in Idaho, is detained in Iran. The group says that Abedini’s charges stem from his conversion to Christianity from Islam 13 years ago and his activities with home churches in Iran.

    January 2013 – Abedini is sentenced to eight years in prison, on charges of attempting to undermine the Iranian government.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Abedini, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, and Jason Rezaian, in exchange for clemency of seven Iranians imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    Amir Mirzaei Hekmati
    August 2011 – Amir Mirzaei Hekmati travels to Iran to visit relatives and gets detained by authorities, according to his family. His arrest isn’t made public for months.

    December 17, 2011 – Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claims to have arrested an Iranian-American working as a CIA agent, according to state-run Press TV.

    December 18, 2011 – Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency broadcasts a video in which a young man says his name is Hekmati, and that he joined the US Marine Corps and worked with Iraqi officers.

    December 19, 2011 – The US State Department confirms the identity of the man detained in Iran and calls for his immediate release.

    December 20, 2011 – Hekmati’s family says that he was arrested in August while visiting relatives in Iran. The family asserts that they remained quiet about the arrest at the urging of Iranian officials who promised his release.

    December 27, 2011 – Hekmati’s trial begins in Iran. Prosecutors accuse Hekmati of entering Iran with the intention of infiltrating the country’s intelligence system in order to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorist activities, according to the Fars news agency.

    January 9, 2012 – An Iranian news agency reports that Hekmati is convicted of “working for an enemy country,” as well as membership in the CIA and “efforts to accuse Iran of involvement in terrorism.” He is sentenced to death.

    March 5, 2012 – An Iranian court dismisses a lower court’s death sentence for Hekmati and orders a retrial. He remains in prison.

    September 2013 – In a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry, Hekmati says that his confession was obtained under duress.

    April 11, 2014 – Hekmati’s sister tells CNN that Hekmati has been convicted in Iran by a secret court of “practical collaboration with the US government” and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Hekmati, Abedini, and Jason Rezaian, in exchange for clemency of seven Iranians indicted or imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    Jason Rezaian
    July 24, 2014 – The Washington Post reports that its Tehran correspondent and Bureau Chief Jason Rezaian, his wife Yeganeh Salehi and two freelance journalists were detained on July 22, 2014. An Iranian official confirmed to CNN that the group is being held by authorities.

    July 29, 2014 – Iran releases one of three people detained alongside Rezaian, a source close to the family of the released detainee tells CNN. The released detainee is the husband of an Iranian-American photojournalist who remains in custody with Rezaian and his wife, according to the source.

    August 20, 2014 – The Washington Post reports the photojournalist detained with Rezaian in July has been released. At her family’s request, the Post declines to publish her name.

    October 6, 2014 – According to the Washington Post, Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, has been released on bail.

    December 6, 2014 – During a 10-hour court session in Tehran, Rezaian is officially charged with unspecified crimes, according to the newspaper.

    April 20, 2015 – According the Washington Post, Rezaian is being charged with espionage and other serious crimes including “collaborating with a hostile government” and “propaganda against the establishment.”

    October 11, 2015 – Iran’s state media reports that Rezaian has been found guilty, but no details are provided about his conviction or his sentence. His trial reportedly took place between May and August.

    November 22, 2015 – An Iranian court sentences Rezaian to prison. The length of the sentence is not specified.

    January 16, 2016 – Iran releases four US prisoners including Rezaian, Hekmati, and Abedini, in exchange for the clemency of seven Iranians indicted or imprisoned in the United States for sanctions violations.

    May 1, 2018 – Joins CNN as a global affairs analyst.

    Reza “Robin” Shahini
    July 11, 2016 – San Diego resident Reza “Robin” Shahini is arrested while visiting family in Gorgan, Iran. Shahini is a dual US-Iranian citizen.

    October 2016 – Shahini is sentenced to 18 years in prison.

    February 15, 2017 – Goes on a hunger strike to protest his sentence.

    April 3, 2017 – The Center for Human Rights in Iran says Shahini has been released on bail while he awaits the ruling of the appeals court.

    July 2018 – A civil lawsuit filed against the Iranian government on Shahini’s behalf indicates that Shahini has returned to the United States.

    Xiyue Wang
    July 16, 2017 – The semi-official news agency Fars News, citing a video statement from Iranian judicial spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejheie, reports that a US citizen has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of spying. Princeton University identifies the man as Chinese-born Xiyue Wang, an American citizen and graduate student in history. According to a university statement, Wang was arrested in Iran last summer while doing scholarly research in connection with his Ph.D. dissertation.

    December 7, 2019 – The White House announces that Wang has been released and is returning to the United States. Iran released Wang in a prisoner swap, in coordination with the United States freeing an Iranian scientist named Massoud Soleimani.

    Michael White
    January 8, 2019 – Michael White’s mother, Joanne White, tells CNN she reported him missing when he failed to return to work in California in July, after traveling to Iran to visit his girlfriend.

    January 9, 2019 – Bahram Ghasemi, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, says White “was arrested in the city of Mashhad a while ago, and within a few days after his arrest the US government was informed of the arrest through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran.” Ghasemi denies allegations that White, a US Navy veteran, has been mistreated in prison.

    March 2019 – White is handed a 13-year prison sentence on charges of insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and for publicly posting private images, according to his attorney Mark Zaid.

    March 19, 2020 – White is released into the custody of the Swiss Embassy on medical furlough. One condition of his release is that he must stay in Iran.

    June 4, 2020 – White is released, according to White’s mother and a person familiar with the negotiations.

    Baquer and Siamak Namazi
    October 2015 – Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman with dual US and Iranian citizenship, is detained while visiting relatives in Tehran.

    February 2016 – Baquer Namazi, a former UNICEF official and father of Siamak Namazi, is detained, his wife Effie Namazi says on Facebook. He is an Iranian-American.

    October 2016 – The men are sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $4.8 million, according to Iran’s official news channel IRINN. Iran officials say five people were convicted and sentenced for “cooperating with Iran’s enemies,” a government euphemism that usually implies cooperating with the United States.

    January 28, 2018 – Baquer Namazi is granted a four-day leave by the Iranian government, after being discharged from an Iranian hospital. Namazi’s family say the 81-year-old was rushed to the hospital on January 15 after a severe drop in his blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat and serious depletion of energy. This was the fourth time Namazi had been transferred to a hospital in the last year. In September, he underwent emergency heart surgery to install a pacemaker.

    February 2018 – Baquer Namazi is released on temporary medical furlough.

    February 2020 – Iran’s Revolutionary Court commutes Baquer Namazi’s sentence to time served and the travel ban on him is lifted.

    May 2020 – According to the family, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) places a new travel ban on Baquer Namazi, preventing him from leaving the country.

    October 26, 2021 – Baquer Namazi undergoes surgery to clear a “life-threatening blockage in one of the main arteries to his brain, which was discovered late last month,” his lawyer says in a statement.

    October 1, 2022 – Baquer Namazi is released from detention and is permitted to leave Iran “to seek medical treatment abroad,” according to a statement from UN Secretary General spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

    March 9, 2023 – Siamak Namazi makes a plea to President Joe Biden to put the “liberty of innocent Americans above politics” and ramp up efforts to secure his release, in an interview with CNN from inside Iran’s Evin prison.

    September 18, 2023 – Siamak Namazi is freed, along with four other Americans as part of a wider deal that includes the United States unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

    North Korea

    Kenneth Bae
    December 11, 2012 – US officials confirm that American citizen Kenneth Bae has been detained in North Korea for over a month.

    April 30, 2013 – North Korea’s Supreme Court sentences Bae to 15 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” against the country.

    October 11, 2013 – Bae meets with his mother in North Korea.

    January 20, 2014 – A statement is released in which Bae says that he had committed a “serious crime” against North Korea. Any statement made by Bae in captivity is sanctioned by the North Korean government. The country has a long history of forcing false confessions.

    February 7, 2014 – The State Department announces that Bae has been moved from a hospital to a labor camp.

    November 8, 2014 – The State Department announces that Bae and Matthew Miller have been released and are on their way home.

    Jeffrey Fowle
    June 6, 2014 – North Korea announces it has detained US citizen Jeffrey Edward Fowle, who entered the country as a tourist in April. Fowle was part of a tour group and was detained in mid-May after leaving a bible in a restaurant.

    June 30, 2014 – North Korea says that it plans to prosecute Fowle and another detained American tourist, Matthew Miller, accusing them of “perpetrating hostile acts.”

    October 21, 2014 – A senior State Department official tells CNN that Fowle has been released and is on his way home.

    Aijalon Gomes
    January 25, 2010 – Aijalon Mahli Gomes, of Boston, is detained in North Korea after crossing into the country illegally from China.

    April 7, 2010 – He is sentenced to eight years of hard labor and ordered to pay a fine of 70 million North Korean won or approximately $600,000.

    July 10, 2010 – Gomes is hospitalized after attempting to commit suicide.

    August 25-27, 2010 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in North Korea, with hopes of negotiating for Gomes’ release.

    August 27, 2010 – Carter and Gomes leave Pyongyang after Gomes is granted amnesty for humanitarian purposes.

    Kim Dong Chul
    October 2015 – Kim Dong Chul, a naturalized American citizen, is taken into custody after allegedly meeting a source to obtain a USB stick and camera used to gather military secrets. In January 2016, Kim is given permission to speak with CNN by North Korean officials and asks that the United States or South Korea rescue him.

    March 25, 2016 – A North Korean official tells CNN that Kim has confessed to espionage charges.

    April 29, 2016 – A North Korean official tells CNN that Kim has been sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for subversion and espionage.

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Kim Dong Chul, Kim Hak-song and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Kim Hak-song
    May 7, 2017 – The state-run Korean Central News Agency reports that US citizen Kim Hak-song was detained in North Korea on May 6 on suspicion of “hostile acts” against the regime. The regime describes Kim as “a man who was doing business in relation to the operation of Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.”

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Kim Hak-song, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Kim Sang Duk
    April 22, 2017 – US citizen Kim Sang Duk, also known as Tony Kim, is detained by authorities at Pyongyang International Airport for unknown reasons. Kim taught for several weeks at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

    May 3, 2017 – State-run Korean Central News Agency reports that Kim is accused of attempting to overthrow the government.

    May 9, 2018 – Trump announces that Tony Kim, Kim Hak-song and Kim Dong Chul appear to be in good health and are returning to the United States with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

    May 10, 2018 – The three freed American detainees arrive at Joint Base Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

    Euna Lee and Laura Ling
    March 2009 – Journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling are arrested while reporting from the border between North Korea and China for California-based Current Media.

    June 4, 2009 – They are sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.

    August 4, 2009 – Former US President Bill Clinton travels to Pyongyang on a private humanitarian mission to help secure their release.

    August 5, 2009 – Lee and Ling are pardoned and released.

    Matthew Miller
    April 25, 2014 – North Korea’s news agency reports that Matthew Todd Miller was taken into custody on April 10. According to KCNA, Miller entered North Korea seeking asylum and tour up his tourist visa.

    June 30, 2014 – North Korea says that it plans to prosecute Miller and another detained American tourist, Jeffrey Fowle, accusing them of “perpetrating hostile acts.”

    September 14, 2014 – According to state-run media, Miller is convicted of committing “acts hostile” to North Korea and sentenced to six years of hard labor.

    November 8, 2014 – The State Department announces Miller and Kenneth Bae have been released and are on their way home.

    Merrill Newman
    October 26, 2013 – Merrill Newman of Palo Alto, California, is detained in North Korea, according to his family. Just minutes before his plane is to depart, Newman is removed from the flight by North Korean authorities, his family says.

    November 22, 2013 – The US State Department says North Korea has confirmed to Swedish diplomats that it is holding an American citizen. The State Department has declined to confirm the identity of the citizen, citing privacy issues, but the family of Newman says the Korean War veteran and retired financial consultant has been detained since October.

    November 30, 2013 – KCNA reports Newman issued an apology to the people of North Korea, “After I killed so many civilians and (North Korean) soldiers and destroyed strategic objects in the DPRK during the Korean War, I committed indelible offensive acts against the DPRK government and Korean people.” His statement ends: “If I go back to (the) USA, I will tell the true features of the DPRK and the life the Korean people are leading.”

    December 7, 2013 – Newman returns to the United States, arriving at San Francisco International Airport. North Korea’s state news agency reports Newman was released for “humanitarian” reasons.

    Eddie Yong Su Jun
    April 14, 2011 – The KCNA reports that US citizen Eddie Yong Su Jun was arrested in November 2010 and has been under investigation for committing a crime against North Korea. No details are provided on the alleged crime.

    May 27, 2011 – Following a visit from the US delegation which includes the special envoy for North Korean human rights, Robert King, and the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the US Agency for International Development, Jon Brause, to North Korea, Yong Su Jun is released.

    Otto Frederick Warmbier
    January 2, 2016 – Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia college student, is detained in North Korea after being accused of a “hostile act” against the government.

    February 29, 2016 – The North Korean government releases a video of Warmbier apologizing for committing, in his own words, “the crime of taking down a political slogan from the staff holding area of the Yanggakdo International Hotel.” It is not known if Warmbier was forced to speak.

    March 16, 2016 – Warmbier is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for crimes against the state, a North Korean official tells CNN.

    June 13, 2017 – Warmbier is transported back to the United States via medevac flight to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. There, doctors say that he has suffered severe brain damage. Doctors say Warmbier shows no current signs of botulism, which North Korean officials claim he contracted after his trial.

    June 19, 2017 – Warmbier’s family issues a statement that he has died.

    April 26, 2018 – Warmbier’s parents file a wrongful death lawsuit against the North Korean government charging that the country’s regime tortured and killed their son, according to lawyers for the family.

    December 24, 2018 – A federal judge in Washington awards Warmbier’s parents more than half a billion dollars in the wrongful death suit against the North Korean government. North Korea did not respond to the lawsuit – the opinion was rendered as a so-called “default judgment” – and the country has no free assets in the US for which the family could make a claim.

    Russia

    Trevor Reed
    2019 – While visiting a longtime girlfriend, Trevor Reed is taken into custody after a night of heavy drinking according to state-run news agency TASS and Reed’s family. Police tell state-run news agency RIA-Novosti that Reed was involved in an altercation with two women and a police unit that arrived at the scene following complaints of a disturbance. Police allege Reed resisted arrest, attacked the driver, hit another policeman, caused the car to swerve by grabbing the wheel and created a hazardous situation on the road, RIA stated.

    July 30, 2020 – Reed is sentenced to nine years in prison for endangering “life and health” of Russian police officers.

    April 1, 2021 – The parents of Reed reveal that their son served as a Marine presidential guard under the Obama administration – a fact they believe led Russia to target him.

    April 27, 2022 – Reed is released in a prisoner swap.

    June 14, 2022 – Reed tells CNN that he has filed a petition with the United Nations (UN), declaring that Russia violated international law with his detention and poor treatment.

    Brittney Griner
    February 17, 2022 – Two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist and WBNA star Brittney Griner is taken into custody following a customs screening at Sheremetyevo Airport. Russian authorities said Griner had cannabis oil in her luggage and accused her of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance, an offense the Russian government says is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

    July 7, 2022 – Griner pleads guilty to drug charges in a Russian court.

    August 4, 2022 – Griner is found guilty of drug smuggling with criminal intent and sentenced by a Russian court to 9 years of jail time with a fine of one million rubles (roughly $16,400).

    October 25, 2022 – At an appeal hearing, a Russian judge leaves Griner’s verdict in place, upholding her conviction on drug smuggling charges and reducing only slightly her nine-year prison sentence.

    November 9, 2022 – Griner’s attorney tells CNN she is being moved to a Russian penal colony where she is due to serve the remainder of her sentence.

    December 8, 2022 – US President Biden announces that Griner has been released from Russian detention and is on her way home.

    Turkey

    Serkan Golge
    July 2016 – While on vacation in Turkey, Serkan Golge is arrested and accused of having links to the Gulenist movement. Golge is a 37-year-old NASA physicist who holds dual Turkish-US citizenship.

    February 8, 2018 – Golge is sentenced to 7.5 years in prison.

    September 2018 – A Turkish court reduces Golge’s prison sentence to five years.

    May 29, 2019 – The State Department announces that Golge has been released.

    Andrew Brunson
    October 2016 – Andrew Brunson, a North Carolina native, is arrested in Izmir on Turkey’s Aegean coast, where he is pastor at the Izmir Resurrection Church. Brunson, an evangelical Presbyterian pastor, is later charged with plotting to overthrow the Turkish government, disrupting the constitutional order and espionage.

    March 2018 – A formal indictment charges Brunson with espionage and having links to terrorist organizations.

    October 12, 2018 – Brunson is sentenced to three years and one month in prison but is released based on time served.

    Venezuela

    Timothy Hallett Tracy
    April 24, 2013 – Timothy Hallett Tracy, of Los Angeles, is arrested at the Caracas airport, according to Reporters Without Borders. Tracy traveled to Venezuela to make a documentary about the political division gripping the country.

    April 25, 2013 – In a televised address, newly elected President Nicolas Maduro says he ordered the arrest of Tracy for “financing violent groups.”

    April 27, 2013 – Tracy is formally charged with conspiracy, association for criminal purposes and use of a false document.

    June 5, 2013 – Tracy is released from prison and expelled from Venezuela.

    Joshua Holt
    May 26, 2018 – Joshua Holt and his Venezuelan wife, Thamara Holt, are released by Venezuela. The two had been imprisoned there since 2016. The American traveled to Venezuela to marry Thamara in 2016, and shortly afterward was accused by the Venezuelan government of stockpiling weapons and attempting to destabilize the government. He was held for almost two years with no trial.

    “Citgo 6”

    November 2017 – After arriving in Caracas, Venezuela, for an impromptu business meeting, Tomeu Vadell and five other Citgo executives – Gustavo Cardenas, Jorge Toledo, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano and Jose Angel Pereira – are arrested and detained on embezzlement and corruption charges. Citgo is the US subsidiary of the Venezuelan oil and natural gas company PDVSA. Five of the six men are US citizens; one is a US legal permanent resident.

    December 2019 – The “Citgo 6” are transferred from the detention facility, where they have been held without trial for more than two years, to house arrest.

    February 5, 2020 – They are moved from house arrest into prison, hours after Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido met with US President Donald Trump

    July 30, 2020 – Two of the men – Cárdenas and Toledo – are released on house arrest after a humanitarian visit to Caracas by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and a team of non-government negotiators.

    November 27, 2020 – The six oil executives are found guilty and are given sentences between 8 to 13 years in prison.

    April 30, 2021 – The men are released from prison to house arrest.

    October 16, 2021 – The “Citgo 6,” all under house arrest, are picked up by the country’s intelligence service SEBIN, just hours after the extradition of Alex Saab, a Colombian financier close to Maduro.

    March 8, 2022 – Cardenas is one of two detainees released from prison. The other, Jorge Alberto Fernandez, a Cuban-US dual citizen detained in Venezuela since February 2021, was accused of terrorism for carrying a small domestic drone. The releases take place after a quiet trip to Caracas by a US government delegation.

    October 1, 2022 – US President Biden announces the release and return of Toledo, Vadell, Alirio Zambrano, Jose Luis Zambrano, and Pereira.

    Matthew Heath

    September 2020 – Is arrested and charged with terrorism in Venezuela.

    June 20, 2022 – Family of Heath state that he has attempted suicide. “We are aware of reports that a US citizen was hospitalized in Venezuela,” a State Department spokesperson says. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

    October 1, 2022 – US President Biden announces the release and return of Heath.

    Airan Berry and Luke Denman

    May 4, 2020 – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says two American “mercenaries” have been apprehended after a failed coup attempt to capture and remove him. Madura identifies the captured Americans as Luke Denman, 34, and Airan Berry, 41. On state television, Maduro brandishes what he claims are the US passports and driver’s licenses of the two men, along with what he says are their ID cards for Silvercorp, a Florida-based security services company.

    May 5, 2020 – Denman appears on Venezuelan state TV. He is shown looking directly at the camera recounting his role in “helping Venezuelans take back control of their country.”

    August 7, 2020 – Prosecutors announce that Berry and Denman have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

    December 20, 2023 – It is announced that the US has reached an agreement to secure the release of 10 Americans, including Berry and Denman, held in Venezuela.

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  • Summery Exotic Cocktails For The Last Of Winter

    Summery Exotic Cocktails For The Last Of Winter

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    Spring is in sight, but winter still has a hold on the weather – here are some tropical cocktails to give you the summertime feel

    Winter is done in three weeks, but it isn’t done with us yet. Coats, sleet, and long days are still here.  But hope is around the corner, March and April are often the busiest months of the year, surprisingly for gyms. People begin to feel summer approaching and want to start getting their bodies swimsuit-ready.  The dreams of tropical (or at least sunny) destinations are in people’s mind as they look out the window.  To help, here are some summery exotic cocktail for the last of winter.

    Related: California or New York, Which Has The Biggest Marijuana Mess

    Daiquiri

    Made famous by Hemingway, the Daiquiri is frozen fun choice of summer time drinks!  It was either invented in 1902 by an American mining engineer named Jennings CoxWilliam A. Chanler in Cuba or a US congressman who purchased the Cuban iron mines and introduced it to New York.

    • 4 ounces white rum
    • 2 ounces lime juice, freshly squeezed
    • 2 ounces simple syrup
    • Garnish: 2 lime wheels

    Create

    1. Add all ingredients into a blender with a cup and a half of ice.

    2. Pulse until mixed.

    3. Divide between two glasses and garnish each with a lime wheel.

    Tequila Sunrise

    Created by Bobby Lozoff and Billy Rice in the early 1970s while  working as young bartenders in Sausalito. They served the drink to The Rolling Stones’s Mick Jagger at the start of their 1972 American.  Jagger had one, loved, and he and the band order them throughout the tour.  He even dubbing the tour the “cocaine and tequila sunrise tour”.

    • 2 ounces blanco tequila
    • 4 ounces orange juice, freshly squeezed
    • 1/4 ounce grenadine
    • Garnish: orange slice
    • Garnish: cherry

    Create

    1. Add the tequila and then the orange juice to a chilled tall highball glass filled with ice.

    2. Top with the grenadine, which will sink to the bottom of the glass, creating a layered effect.

    3. Garnish with an orange slice and a cherry.

    RELATED: Science Says Medical Marijuana Improves Quality Of Life

    Barracuda

    Developed in the late 50s by the bartender Benito Cuppari while he was working SS Michelangelo cruise ship, it is named after the Barracuda Beach Club in Portico.  It was initially served in a pineapple shell.

    Ingredients

    • ⅔ Part Galliano
    • ⅓ Part Grenadine
    • ⅔ Part Light Rum
    • ⅓ Part Lime Juice
    • ⅔ Part Pineapple Juice
    • Champagne

    Create

    • Fill a chilled highball glass with ice cubes.
    • Add galliano, grenadine, light rum, lime juice and pineapple juice.
    • Top up with champagne.

    OR

    • Shake Galliano, grenadine, light rum, lime juice and pineapple juice well.
    • Pour in a champagne coupe.
    • Top with champagne

    While the temperatures may be low outside, warm your insides with these summery exotic cocktails for the winter.

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    Sarah Johns

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  • Let's Check In On Communism: Cuba Raising Gas Price To $20 A Gallon

    Let's Check In On Communism: Cuba Raising Gas Price To $20 A Gallon

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    Opinion

    Creative Commons

    We have far-left Democratic politicians who want to bring full blown socialism to the United States. They’re not ashamed of it, some of them even refer to themselves as socialists.

    They say capitalism is bad. They say free markets are wrong.

    Is $20 a gallon for gas wrong? Because that’s the state of communism in one of the world’s last bastions of the defeated ideology.

    RELATED: ‘I Have No Words’: MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinki Beside Herself Over Poll Showing Key Voter Bloc Moving To Trump

    In the communist country of Cuba, the regime is going to deliberately raise the price of gasoline to astronomical heights.

    Jalopnik reports, “The Cuban government has announced that it will be raising the country’s fuel prices by over 500 percent in February. Pump prices will spike from 25 Cuban pesos to 132 pesos per liter, according to the BBC.”

    The story continues:

    To use figures more relatable for us Americans, the prices are jumping from $3.94 per gallon to $20.86. The sharp increase paired with the opening of 29 gas stations that will exclusively accept U.S. dollars serve as a government attempt to bolster the country’s struggling economy.

    It’s not a complete surprise that Cuba’s communist government is opening dollar-only gas stations. The U.S. dollar is the most widely used currency in international trade, and Cuba’s foreign currency reserve is heavily depleted. The government is hoping to use revenue from these new stations to purchase fuel on the international market.

    This is what communism gets you. This is what socialism gets you. Even during the worst days of Bidenflation, our nominally mixed-market economy held gas to (for the most part) less than $5 per gallon.

    And that was crushing for middle-class Americans. $20 gas would grind our entire country to a halt.

    RELATED: Elon Musk: Biden ‘Actively Facilitating’ Illegal Immigration As Caravan Of 15,000 Illegal Immigrants Reportedly Heads To The U.S.

    There’s a Reason Cubans Flee for America

    The radical leftist idea that we should somehow replicate this kind of socialism in the U.S. is something the overwhelming majority of Americans would never stand for in practice.

    Cubans have regularly tried to illegally enter America on rafts in shark-infested waters for a reason.

    No one in America is trying to do the same to get into Cuba.

    There’s a reason for that.

    Hunter Biden Flees Committee Hearing After Nancy Mace Tells Him To His Face ‘You Have No Balls’ and Should Be ‘Arrested Right Here And Right Now’

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    is a professional writer and editor with over 15 years of experience in conservative media and Republican politics. He has been a special guest on Fox News, Sirius XM, appeared as the guest of various popular personalities, and has had a lifelong interest in right-leaning politics.

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    John Hanson

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  • Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

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    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba – CBS News


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    Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was arrested in Florida and is accused of spending decades spying for Cuba. Manuel Bojorquez reports.

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  • Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba

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    Former U.S. ambassador accused of spying for Cuba – CBS News


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    Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was arrested in Florida and is accused of spending decades spying for Cuba. Manuel Bojorquez reports.

    Be the first to know

    Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.


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  • Former U.S. Diplomat Charged with Secretly Spying for Cuba

    Former U.S. Diplomat Charged with Secretly Spying for Cuba

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    MIAMI — A former career American diplomat was charged Monday with serving as a secret agent for communist Cuba going back decades in what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most brazen and long-running betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service.

    Court papers alleged that Manuel Rocha engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives and providing false information to U.S. government officials about his travels and contacts.

    The complaint, filed in federal court in Miami, charges Rocha with crimes including acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and provides a vivid case study of what American officials say are long-standing efforts by Cuba and its notoriously sophisticated intelligence services to target government officials who can be flipped.

    “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. “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.”

    The 73-year-old Rocha, whose two-decade career as a U.S. diplomat included top posts in Bolivia, Argentina and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, was arrested at his Miami home Friday. He wept as he sat handcuffed during his first court appearance Monday and was ordered held pending a bond hearing Wednesday. His attorney declined to comment.

    The Justice Department did not reveal how Rocha attracted the attention of Cuba’s intelligence operatives nor did it describe what, if any, sensitive information he may have provided while in government.

    Instead, the case relies largely on what prosecutors say were Rocha’s own admissions, made over the past year to an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban intelligence operative.

    Rocha praised the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro as “Comandante,” branded the U.S. the “enemy” and bragged about his service for more than 40 years as a Cuban mole in the heart of the State Department and elite U.S. foreign policy circles, the complaint says.

    “What we have done … it’s enormous … more than a Grand Slam,” he was quoted as saying at one of several secretly recorded conversations starting last year at discrete locations — a church and outdoor food court — in downtown Miami.

    “They underestimated what we could do to them. We did more than they thought,” the document quotes Rocha as saying, referring to the United States.

    To cover his tracks, he referred to Cuba as “the island” and led a “normal life” disguised as a “right-wing person,” he said in one of the recordings. He also arrived at the meetings with the undercover agent in Miami deliberately straying from the most-direct route and pausing along the way in what prosecutors allege was classic, counter-surveillance “tradecraft” as taught by Cuba’s spymasters.

    “It’s what I’ve always been told to do,” Rocha told his handler about his movements.

    The case is part of a historically tense relationship between the U.S. and Cuba. Washington and Havana restored diplomatic relations in late 2014 after a half-century of Cold War acrimony, though the Trump administration reimposed sanctions on Cuba and, in 2021, redesignated it a state sponsor of terrorism.

    The charging document traces Rocha’s illegal ties to Cuba back to 1981, when he first joined the State Department, to well after his departure from the federal government, when he took on lucrative private sector jobs — most recently as a senior business adviser to an international public relations firm.

    The FBI learned about the relationship last year and arranged a series of undercover encounters in downtown Miami between Rocha and an agent purporting to be a Cuban intelligence operative.

    “I always told myself, ‘The only thing that can put everything we have done in danger is … someone’s betrayal, someone who may have met me, someone who may have known something at some point,’” Rocha said in one of of the meetings, according to the charging document.

    In another meeting last year, Rocha referred to Cuba shooting down two unarmed planes sent by the Miami-based group of exiles Brothers to the Rescue in which four opponents of Castro’s government were killed in 1996.

    There’s no indication in the complaint that Rocha aided the Cubans with the military operation — a major flashpoint in more than a half-century of brinksmanship between the communist-ruled island and its right-wing opponents in Miami. But at the time he served as a senior political officer at the U.S. special interest section in Havana.

    “I lived through it, because I was in charge,” Rocha said. “That was a time of a lot of tension.”

    Rocha’s service to Cuba may have gone back earlier than the start of his U.S. diplomatic career.

    The complaint cites Rocha telling the undercover agent, who went by the name Miguel, that he first proved his loyalty in Chile in 1973 – the same year right-wing Gen. Augusto Pinochet, with U.S. backing, overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende.

    “They must have told you something because you mentioned Chile,” Rocha told the undercover agent who presented himself as having reached out to him at the request of higher-ups in Cuba’s National Intelligence Directorate. “That inspired trust in me.”

    Born in Colombia, Rocha was raised in a working-class home in New York City and went on to obtain a succession of liberal arts degrees from Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the foreign service in 1981.

    He was the top U.S. diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decade-long currency stabilization program backed by Washington was unraveling under the weight of huge foreign debt and stagnant growth, triggering a political crisis that would see the South American country cycle through five presidents in two weeks.

    At his next post, as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that the U.S. would cut off assistance to the poor South American country if it were to elect former coca grower Evo Morales.

    “I want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if they vote for those who want Bolivia to return to exporting cocaine, that will seriously jeopardize any future aid to Bolivia from the United States,″ Rocha said in a speech that was widely interpreted as an attempt to sustain U.S. dominance in the region.

    The gambit angered Bolivians and gave Morales a last-minute boost. When he was finally elected three years later, the leftist leader expelled Rocha’s successor as chief of the diplomatic mission for inciting “civil war.”

    Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.

    After his retirement from the State Department, Rocha began a second career in business, serving as the president of a gold mine in the Dominican Republic partly owned by Canada’s Barrick Gold.

    More recently, he’s held senior roles at XCoal, a Pennsylvania-based coal exporter; Clover Leaf Capital, a company formed to facilitate mergers in the cannabis industry; law firm Foley & Lardner; and Spanish public relations firm Llorente & Cuenca, which said Monday that it had fired him.

    John Feeley, who ended a long diplomatic career serving as U.S. ambassador to Panama, said he was “saddened and shocked that my former mentor turned out to be a career Cuban mole.”

    Feeley, who retired from the State Department over differences with President Donald Trump’s administration, said that the last time he saw Rocha he was surprised by how a diplomat who had served administrations of both parties had so fully embraced Trump’s brand of politics.

    “It is beyond ironic that he cultivated this cartoonish persona and that everyone apparently bought it,” he said.

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    Time

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  • Former U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha arrested, accused of serving as agent of Cuba, sources say

    Former U.S. ambassador Manuel Rocha arrested, accused of serving as agent of Cuba, sources say

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    A former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba’s government, The Associated Press has learned.

    Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint and more details about the case are expected to be made public at a court appearance Monday, said two people who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing federal investigation.

    One of the people said the Justice Department case accuses Rocha of working to promote the Cuban government’s interests. Federal law requires people doing the political bidding of a foreign government or entity inside the U.S. to register with the Justice Department, which in recent years has stepped up its criminal enforcement of illicit foreign lobbying.

    The Justice Department declined to comment. It was not immediately clear if Rocha had a lawyer and a law firm where he previously worked said it was not representing him. His wife hung up when contacted by the AP.

    Rocha’s 25-year diplomatic career was spent under both Democratic and Republican administrations, much of it in Latin America during the Cold War, a period of sometimes heavy-handed U.S. political and military policies. His diplomatic postings included a stint at the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba during a time when the U.S. lacked full diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s communist government.

    Born in Colombia, Rocha was raised in a working-class home in New York City and went on to obtain a succession of liberal arts degrees from Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the foreign service in 1981.

    He was the top U.S. diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decade-long currency stabilization program backed by Washington was unraveling under the weight of huge foreign debt and stagnant growth, triggering a political crisis that would see the South American country cycle through five presidents in two weeks.

    At his next post as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that the U.S. would cut off assistance to the poor South American country if it were to elect former coca grower Evo Morales.

    “I want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if they vote for those who want Bolivia to return to exporting cocaine, that will seriously jeopardize any future aid to Bolivia from the United States,” Rocha said in a speech that was widely interpreted as a an attempt to sustain U.S. dominance in the region.

    The gambit angered Bolivians and gave Morales a last-minute boost. When he was finally elected three years later, the leftist leader expelled Rocha’s successor as chief of the diplomatic mission for inciting “civil war.”

    Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.

    Rocha’s wife, Karla Wittkop Rocha, would not comment when contacted by the AP. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she said before hanging up.

    Following his retirement from the State Department, Rocha began a second career in business, serving as the president of a gold mine in the Dominican Republic partly owned by Canada’s Barrick Gold.

    More recently, he’s held senior roles at XCoal, a Pennsylvania-based coal exporter; Clover Leaf Capital, a company formed to facilitate mergers in the cannabis industry; law firm Foley & Lardner and Spanish public relations firms Llorente & Cuenca.

    “Our firm remains committed to transparency and will closely monitor the situation, cooperating fully with the authorities if any information becomes available to us,” Dario Alvarez, CEO of Llorente & Cuenca’s U.S. operations, said in an email.

    XCoal and Clover Leaf Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Foley & Lardner said Rocha left the law firm in August.

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  • Deal ‘with the devil’: Meet the Cubans who’ve joined Russia’s war on Ukraine

    Deal ‘with the devil’: Meet the Cubans who’ve joined Russia’s war on Ukraine

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    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    What César really wanted was to get out of Cuba. A bartender struggling to make ends meet in Havana, he tried last year to reach Miami in a rickety boat but was forced to abandon the attempt when he was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard.

    He’s now preparing a second escape attempt: with a direct flight to Moscow. His ticket has been paid for by a Russian recruiter but it comes with a hefty price tag nonetheless: As part of the deal, he will have to join the Russian army and fight in Ukraine.

    “If this is the sacrifice I have to make for my family to get ahead, I’ll do it,”  said César, who turned 19 this year and whose name has been changed to protect his identity.

    “You can be a nuclear physicist and still die of hunger here,” he said. “With my current salary I can barely buy basic things like toilet paper or milk.” He said he hoped he would be allowed to work as a paramedic.

    The news of Cuban fighters in Ukraine splashed across global headlines earlier this month when Havana announced it had arrested 17 people for involvement in a human trafficking ring recruiting young men to fight for Russia.

    The news raised questions about the extent of cooperation between the two Cold War allies, and whether cracks were beginning to show in Havana’s support for Russia’s invasion.

    Conversations with Cubans in Cuba and Russia reveal a different side of the story: of desperate young men who see enlistment in the Russian army as their best shot at a better life — even if not all of them seem to know what they were getting themselves into.

    One recruit in his late 40s in the Russian city of Tula, whom we will call Pedro, said he was promised a job as a driver “for workers and construction material” but on arrival in Russia was being prepared for combat, weapon in hand.

    “We signed a contract with the devil,” he said, recalling the moment he enlisted. “And the devil does not hand out sweets.”

    Cold-war allies

    Until recently, Havana — though formally neutral on Ukraine — made no secret of siding with Moscow in what it called its clash with the “Yankee empire.” The Castro regime is dependent on Russia for cheap fuel and other aid. But unlike, say, North Korea, it has little to offer in return other than diplomatic loyalty.

    Since the Kremlin launched its full-scale assault last year, the countries have exchanged visits by top brass.

    Critics have warned that, keeping with Soviet tradition, Cuba could send troops to help fight Moscow’s cause. They point to a May visit to Belarus by Cuba’s military attaché, where the “training of Cuban military personnel” was top of the agenda, and a trip to Moscow by Cuba’s defense minister several weeks later to discuss “a number of technical military projects.” But there has been no evidence of direct involvement.

    Havana’s crackdown on the recruitment network followed the publication of an interview on YouTube in late August, in which two 19-year-old Cubans claimed they had been lured to Russia for lucrative construction jobs, only to be sent to the trenches in Ukraine. They said they had suffered beatings, been scammed out of their money and were being kept captive.

    Cuba’s foreign ministry vowed to act “energetically” against efforts to entice Cubans to join Russia’s war effort, adding: “Cuba is not part of the conflict in Ukraine.”

    The change in tone in Havana suggests that the recruitment of Cubans through informal backchannels has “hit a nerve,” said Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House. 

    “Cuba and the Soviet Union fought side by side in Angola and other places, but for ideological reasons,” he said. “Now it’s boiled down to the ugliest, most mercenary terms, giving it a transactional quality that goes against decades of friendship.”

    In November 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree offering fast-tracked naturalization to foreigners who signed up as contract soldiers. “We are all getting Russian citizenship,” one recruit texted this reporter. That week, he and others told POLITICO, some 15 recruits, some of whom had been in Russia for only a couple of months, had been personally handed their passports by the local governor.

    With heavy losses in Ukraine, Russia “needs the cannon fodder,” said Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He added most foreign recruits come from Central Asian and African countries, Syria and Afghanistan.

    It is unclear exactly how many foreign citizens have joined Russia’s ranks. But Luzin says their limited numbers mainly serve to boost Russia’s narrative that it has international support for its war.

    “Without speaking the language, knowing the local terrain, or the right training for modern warfare, they’ll be swiftly killed and that’s it,” he said. 

    Joining the 106th

    For most of the Cubans with whom POLITICO spoke, their involvement with the Russian army began in late 2022, when somebody using the name Elena Shuvalova began posting on social media pages targeting Cubans looking to go abroad or already in Russia.

    One post showed a woman in a long skirt in front of a car decorated with a Cuban flag and a “Z,” Russia’s pro-war symbol. In the accompanying text, Shuvalova offered a one-year contract with the Russian army, “help” with the required language exams and medical tests, and “express legalization within two days.”

    Pay consisted of a one-off handout of 195,000 rubles (about $2,000) followed by a monthly salary of 204,000 rubles ($2,100). By comparison, Cuba’s average GDP per capita in 2020 was $9,500 per year. 

    Of the four recruits currently in Russia who shared their stories with POLITICO, three said they had been flown in from Cuba this summer. At home, they worked in hospitality, teaching and construction. One said he had a professional military background. Two others had completed two years of standard compulsory military service.

    While they knew they would be employed by Russia’s military, they were reassured that they would be working far from the front line as drivers or construction workers. “To dig fortifications or help rebuild cities,” one recruit’s exasperated wife told POLITICO.

    Because they could face charges of joining a mercenary group in Cuba or of treason or espionage in Russia for talking to a reporter, POLITICO changed the names of the recruits quoted in this story.

    Each of them said they were flown in from Varadero along with several dozen other men. They said their passports were not stamped on departure, and that upon entering Russia their migration cards were marked “tourism” as their purpose of stay.

    On landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, the recruits were met by a woman who introduced herself as Diana, who said she was a Cuban with Russian ties. They were then loaded onto a bus and brought to what one recruit described as “an empty school building” near Ryazan, a city in western Russia 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow. 

    There, they underwent a cursory medical check and were subject to a mountain of red tape, including the signing of a contract with the Russian defense ministry. One recruit said a Spanish version of the text was made available to those who specifically requested it, but others said that a translator simply summarized its content verbally.

    The recruits said that some of the new arrivals remained behind at a military unit in Ryazan. But most were transferred to the 106th Guards Airborne, a division based in the city of Tula near Moscow that has been deployed into some of the fiercest fighting in Ukraine.

    Kyiv claims the 106th was largely “reduced to fertilizer” in the early days of the invasion when it tried to capture Kyiv. In recent months, it has been stationed around Soledar and Bakhmut, hotspots in eastern Ukraine.

    “When they handed us the uniform and told us to go train I realized this was not about construction at all,” one recruit said. By then, however, he was locked in.

    A legal adviser who is well-known within Russia’s Cuban community told POLITICO he has delivered the same tough message to scores of Cuban recruits who have appealed to him for help: “Once you’ve signed the contract, defecting is tantamount to treason.” 

    When POLITICO spoke to Pedro in Tula, he said he felt trapped by his decision. 

    “I came here to give my children a better life, not to kill,” he said, breaking down into tears. “I won’t fire a single bullet.” 

    He added he had considered trying to escape. “But where do I go?”

    On landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, the recruits were met by a woman who introduced herself as Diana, who said she was a Cuban with Russian ties | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

    Willing participants

    POLITICO could not determine whether Shuvalova or Diana were working for Russian or Cuban authorities. Neither woman responded to requests for comment — though Shuvalova told journalists at the Russian-language Moscow Times that she worked pro-bono.

    While the Cuban Embassy in Moscow did not respond to multiple requests for comment, the government itself has sent mixed messages. Shortly after Cuba’s announcement that it had broken up the human trafficking ring, Havana’s ambassador to Moscow told the state-run RIA agency that “we have nothing against Cubans who just want to sign a contract and legally take part in this operation.”

    Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

    It’s not easy to tell just how many Cuban citizens have joined the Russian military.

    In conversations with POLITICO, the recruits said roughly 140 Cubans were currently in Tula. And a caller to a Miami-based Spanish-language television channel in early September said that he had some 90 Cubans under his command in Ryazan.

    A trove of 198 hacked documents, allegedly belonging to recent Cuban recruits and published online by the Ukrainian website Informnapalm, showed the ages of those who joined the Russian army ranged between 19 to 69 years old. More than 50 of the passports were issued in June and July this year.

    Not all Cubans POLITICO spoke to said they had been tricked into joining the war. In photos shared online and in messenger apps, many pose proudly in military gear, some carrying weapons. 

    “No one put a gun to their heads,” Yoenni Vega Gonzalez, 36, a Cuban migrant in Russia, said of his acquaintances in Ukraine. “The contract makes it clear that you’re going to war, not to play ball or camping.”

    He said he had been refused the opportunity to join because he does not speak Russian. “Otherwise, I would have gone [to the front] with pride and my head held high.”

    During the reporting of this article, several Cubans still on the island reached out saying they wanted to enlist. All cited economic, and not political, reasons as their core motivation.

    Accounts of daily life behind the fences of the training sites differed greatly.

    Some recruits described their interaction with the Russians as friendly and the atmosphere as relaxed. In their free time they smoked cigarettes and sipped on Coca-Cola (officially not available in either Cuba or Russia). On the weekends they went sightseeing and reveled in the city’s bars.

    But those who say they were tricked into service, seemingly a minority, complain about payment delays and said they are threatened with incarceration for resisting orders.

    When asked about the moral implications of his decision, one recruit in Tula said it wasn’t his primary concern.

    “This is the way we found to get out of Cuba,” he said. “No one here wants to kill anyone. But neither do we want to die ourselves.”

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  • Cuba arrests 17 for luring young men to fight for Russia

    Cuba arrests 17 for luring young men to fight for Russia

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    Cuban authorities said they arrested 17 people in connection to a human-trafficking ring that allegedly coaxed young Cuban men to fight for Russia against Ukraine.

    Earlier this week, the Cuban foreign ministry exposed a Russian trafficking operation used to entice Cubans into the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. Cuba condemned the recruitment racket and the interior ministry said authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.

    On Thursday evening, César Rodríguez,  a colonel with Cuba’s interior ministry, said 17 people had been arrested, including the “internal organizer” of the ring, reported Reuters.

    Rodriguez said the group leader relied on two people living on the island to recruit Cubans to fight for hire on behalf of Russia, but did not name any of the suspects.

    Those involved in the network risk up to 30 years in prison, a life sentence or the death penalty, according to prosecutor Jose Luis Reyes, depending on the severity of the crimes.

    Russia and Cuba share a history of communism and have historically been allies. In July, Cuba came under fire after the country vehemently opposed certain wording condemning Russia in a joint EU-Latin America statement on Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.

    The Kremlin has been scrambling for new military recruits as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine stalls on multiple fronts. It raised the military draft age to 30 years in July.

    On Monday, Cuba denounced the trafficking ring, underlining that the country is “not part of the war conflict in Ukraine,” and that it does not want to look “complicit in these actions.”

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    Claudia Chiappa

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  • Cuba says ‘human trafficking network’ is sending its nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine | CNN

    Cuba says ‘human trafficking network’ is sending its nationals to fight for Russia in Ukraine | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Cuba says it has uncovered a human trafficking network operating from Russia that is recruiting Cubans to fight for their longstanding ally in Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

    Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been trafficked and “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine,” the Cuban foreign ministry said Monday in a statement.

    The ministry gave few details about the alleged trafficking operations, but said that authorities were working to “neutralize and dismantle” the network.

    There were no reports of any arrests of people allegedly involved in the trafficking operation. In September, reports surfaced on social media of Cubans who said they were serving in Russia’s armed forces but that they had been tricked into joining the war effort and mistreated when they refused to fight. CNN was not able to independently verify those allegations, and it is not clear how many Cubans may be fighting for Russia.

    Cuba stressed in its statement that it “is not part of the war in Ukraine.” The Kremlin has not commented on the allegations.

    The report comes amid efforts by Russia to boost its forces in Ukraine, which have suffered heavy losses on the battlefield, and with the future of the mercenary Wagner Group in doubt.

    Moscow announced a plan earlier this year to increase the strength of the Russian armed forces by 30% to 1.5 million servicemen. In July, the Russian state Duma voted to extend the military draft age to include citizens from 18 to 30 years old, up from 27.

    For much of the conflict, the official Russian army has been bolstered by mercenaries contracted to Wagner. But after the death of the group’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led his troops in an aborted mutiny against Moscow in June, it is unclear whether Russia will rely on Wagner forces to wage its war in Ukraine.

    Cuba was a major ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and relations between Havana and Moscow have remained cozy since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    Cuba has been a staunch defender of Russia’s war on the country, blaming the US and NATO for the conflict. As Cuba grapples with its worse economic crisis in decades, Russia has supplied the communist-run island with badly needed food and shipments of crude oil. Since the war began the two nations have signed a flurry of agreements promising increased Russian foreign investment in Cuba.

    In a rare interview in May, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told Russian state-controlled network RT that Cuba condemned “the expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders,” echoing one of the Kremlin’s justifications for its brutal war.

    Diaz-Canel visited Moscow in November last year to attend the unveiling of a statue of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also traveled to Cuba on separate trips this year and hailed the relations between the two countries.

    There are historical precedents of Cubans fighting alongside and on behalf of Russia.

    In several conflicts in Africa during the Cold War, “the deal was the Cubans would supply the soldiers, the Soviets would supply the weapons,” Sergei Radchenko, a historian and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNN.

    Thousands of Cuban fighters intervened in support of communist forces in Angola in 1975, as well as in Ethiopia in 1977, alongside Soviet troops and using Soviet equipment.

    “Having Cuban mercenaries – you might call them mercenaries, or at that time it was revolutionary fighters – is a longstanding precedent as far as Cuba and the Cuban-Russian relationship is concerned,” said Radchenko. In Cuba, those military interventions – often fighting South African-trained mercenaries – are celebrated as having played a crucial role in ending apartheid in South Africa.

    However, Radchenko said, the statement issued by Cuba’s foreign ministry “sounds like something very different,” due to the suggestion of coercion.

    Christopher Sabatini, a senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, said he was not surprised that Russia is seeking Cuban mercenaries to wage its war.

    “This is the typical Russian modus operandi of getting mercenaries to do their fighting for them – particularly in desperate states,” Sabatini told CNN, adding that Cuba “is on the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”

    What was surprising, he said, was the reaction of the Cuban government, which suggests that Russia “touched a nerve.”

    “The Cuban government is fiercely loyal to its allies,” Sabatini said. “That they would call this out is an indication that they truly feel humiliated and exploited by what is an ally taking advantage of their citizens – at a time of desperate need.”

    Russia has offered foreign fighters more than $2000 a month to fight in Ukraine, a fortune in Cuba where doctors do not earn that much in an entire year. Russia has also reportedly offered citizenship to foreigners willing to take up arms.

    “It’s particularly insulting, too, because the way you are rewarding these mercenaries is giving them a chance to flee their country,” said Sabatini. “That hurts.”

    In May, the Russian regional newspaper Ryazan Vedomosti reported that Cuban immigrants living in Russia had joined the Russian army.

    “Several citizens of the Republic of Cuba went to serve in the Russian army. According to them, the Cubans want to help our country carry out tasks in the zone of a special military operation, and some of them would like to become citizens of Russia in the future,” said the article.

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  • Cuba exposes Russian human trafficking ring for military recruitment

    Cuba exposes Russian human trafficking ring for military recruitment

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    The Cuban government has exposed a Russian trafficking operation used to lure Cubans into the war against Ukraine, Cuban authorities announced Monday.

    “The Ministry of the Interior has detected and is working to neutralize and dismantle a human trafficking network operating from Russia to incorporate Cuban citizens living there, and even some from Cuba, into the military forces participating in war operations in Ukraine,” the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday.

    The authorities are taking legal actions against the traffickers, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.

    Cuba condemned the recruitment racket, underlining that the country is “not part of the war conflict in Ukraine,” and that it does not want to look “complicit in these actions.”

    Russia and Cuba share a history of communism and have historically been allies. In July, Cuba came under fire for allegedly taking orders from Russia, after the country vehemently opposed certain wording condemning Russia in a joint EU-Latin American statement on Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.

    The Kremlin has been scrambling for new military recruits, raising the military draft age to 30 years in July.

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    Laura Hülsemann

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  • Russia’s war in Ukraine gatecrashes EU-Latin America reunion

    Russia’s war in Ukraine gatecrashes EU-Latin America reunion

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    A row between EU and Latin American countries over how — or even whether — to mention the war in Ukraine risks turning what was meant to be the celebration of a renewed partnership into a diplomatic failure.

    The first day of a summit between the EU and the Community of the Latin American & the Caribbean States (CELAC) was all about affirming strengthened intercontinental ties. But the lofty talk quickly fell flat as EU negotiators tried to convince Latin American countries to condemn Russia over its war in Ukraine. 

    Nicaragua and Cuba vehemently opposed the proposed language on Ukraine, according to three EU officials — with one alleging that these two countries had received calls from Moscow advising them to do so.

    The row in Brussels came just as Russia refused Monday to extend a U.N.-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain surplus through the Black Sea. Both were stark reminders of how Russia’s hybrid geopolitics seeks to drive a wedge between the rich, pro-Ukrainian West and the rest of the world.

    Despite several rounds of negotiations on a joint declaration which leaders could sign off on, there was still no agreement on Monday evening — with some officials fearing that the two-day summit could fail to produce any joint declaration at all. 

    “I confirm that we are still discussing the text of the communiqué,” said European Council President Charles Michel on Monday afternoon, in an attempt at damage control. “And it means something. It means that we want on both sides an ambitious text.” 

    An EU diplomat said at the end of Monday’s meeting that “negotiations will go down to the finishing line.” Haggling over the text “does not put the summit into jeopardy — for now.”

    Credibility on the line

    Failing to agree a joint declaration would deal a blow to the EU’s credibility at a time when it is seeking to unify voices at the U.N. and beyond in support of Ukraine against a belligerent Russia. Brussels is also trying to become best buddies with Latin America again in the face of an assertive China that is winning market share on the other side of the Atlantic.

    “If Russia were to lay down its arms, there would be peace. If Ukraine were to lay down its arms, there would be no more Ukraine,” said Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņs, whose country borders Russia. 

    “Maybe from a more distant area, it’s not so obvious to understand,” Kariņš added in a clear dig at CELAC countries.

    Latest versions of the documents, seen by POLITICO dated July 7 and July 13, showed that the language on Ukraine had been watered down, going from “strongly” condemning Moscow’s “violating” Ukraine’s sovereignty, to just “expressing concern” on the war in Ukraine. 

    Asked about the holdup, Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said: “I believe that it is part of this process to find, in this dialogue, a way out that respects the visions of both the EU and CELAC and each of its members.”

    Ukraine was not the only contentious issue, with the draft communiqué resembling a shopping list, after each capital pushed to mention their national priorities, such as colonial reparations or the Malvinas islands, over which Argentina and the United Kingdom — which is no longer an EU member — fought a short war 40 years ago.

    Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

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    Camille Gijs, Sarah Anne Aarup and Hans von der Burchard

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  • Why Latin America still won’t condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine

    Why Latin America still won’t condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine

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    Press play to listen to this article

    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    The ghosts of colonial history returned to haunt European and Latin American leaders at their summit in Brussels.

    For the guests, four hundred years of European colonial rule, economic exploitation and slavery was front of mind. For the hosts, it was Russia’s war on Ukraine in the here and now. 

    The divergence in views was so profound that the two sides struggled to align their thinking at their first summit in eight years — especially to find words to condemn Russia’s war of aggression in their closing communiqué.

    That made the two-day gathering frustrating for all concerned — but especially for leaders of the EU’s newest member states from Eastern Europe, which have their own bitter memories of Soviet imperial rule and Russian aggression.

    “It is actually a war of colonization,” Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš said of the 16-month-old Ukraine conflict. 

    “There is a former colonizer, Russia, and a former colony, Ukraine. And the former overlord is trying to take back their one-time possession. I think that many countries around the world can relate to that.”

    Despite the pre-summit rhetoric highlighting the two continents’ shared values, EU leaders struggled to persuade the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) — which includes traditional allies of Moscow such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela — to clearly condemn Russia’s war.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — a regular guest in Brussels — wasn’t invited this time. Wrangling over the wording in their joint declaration delayed the end of the meeting by hours as leaders sought to bridge the gaps. In the end, only Nicaragua dissented.

    “No one intends to lecture anyone,” said European Council President Charles Michel, seeking to placate his guests. “This is not how it works, we have a lot of respect for those countries, for the traditions, for the culture, and the idea is always to engage in a spirit of mutual respect.”

    Four hundred years

    Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, has its eyes on Latin America and likes to emphasize the close cultural and linguistic ties between the two. 

    But those links hark back to Spain — and Europe’s — colonial past. The Spanish kingdom colonized much of Latin America starting in 1493 and, over the next 400 years, acquired vast wealth by exploiting its lands and people. The European slave trade also forcibly transported millions of Africans into slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean.

    While European leaders hoped to ease geopolitical tensions, their Latin American counterparts came to the table with a clear message: Defining relations today means addressing and rectifying past injustices — especially as the EU looks once again to the resource-rich region, this time to power its green transition.

    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves | Jean-Christophe Verhaegen/AFP via Getty Images

    The prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — a small island state that heads up the 33-nation group — called for talks on economic reparations for colonization and enslavement. 

    “Resources from the slave trade and from slavery helped to fuel the industrial revolution that has laid the basis for a lot of the wealth within Western Europe,” Ralph Gonsalves told a small group of reporters on Tuesday.

    This was part of his argument for a plan to “to repair the historical legacies of underdevelopment resulting from native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies,” as he said on Monday ahead of the summit.

    Trade tensions

    Trade talks between the EU and Mercosur — which groups four of Latin America’s big economies — also reflected the broader tensions over what it really means for Europe to start afresh in a relationship of equals.

    Beyond a cursory mention of a Mercosur deal in the final statement, talks with Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay were kept on the sidelines despite previous hopes that the summit could inject new energy into negotiations on wrapping up a trade deal.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen did, however, say after the summit that “our ambition is to … conclude [at] the latest by the end of this year.”

    Industry and civil society have fundamentally different interpretations around how much — or how little — the deal would help put the countries on equal footing with their European partners.

    For businesses, the deal needs to happen to ensure the region remains on the EU’s political and economic map. 

    “For us, the [trade] agreements are important. We need stability and don’t want to be at the mercy of political changes,” said Luisa Santos of the industry lobby group BusinessEurope.

    But NGOs don’t see it that way. “Any proposal that leaves the region as a mere provider of natural resources for the benefit of the one percent in the region, big corporations and rich countries is business as usual,” said Hernán Saenz from the NGO Oxfam.

    Resource craze

    Sealing the Mercosur deal has gained importance for the EU, which is banking on the resource-rich region to power the wind turbines and electric vehicles it needs to meet its climate targets. 

    Brazil is the largest exporter of strategic raw materials to the EU by volume, while the “lithium triangle” spanning Chile, Argentina and Bolivia hosts about half of the world’s lithium reserves. As part of the summit, Brussels and Chile signed a new memorandum of understanding on raw materials. 

    Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (left) and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (right) in Brussels | Dati Bendo/EC

    But the EU’s new appetite for those metals and minerals evoques those dark memories of Spanish conquistadors who set out to dominate large parts of South America — in the name of god, glory and, not least, gold, fueling an economic boom back home while stripping Latin America of its riches.

    While von der Leyen on Monday announced Brussels will pump over €45 billion into the region through its Global Gateway program — for infrastructure projects that, at least in part, will also benefit the EU’s private sector — Europe is coming late to the party in a region where China has already expanded its influence.

    And raw materials partnerships today, the region’s countries emphasized, cannot be based on a model where resource-rich countries mine the valuable resources — often under poor environmental and working conditions — only for them to be shipped abroad for processing and manufacturing, making them reliant on imports for finished products. 

    “This was the first time that we had the opportunity to discuss in such clear terms a mechanism that would take us away from extractivism in Latin America,” Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández said after the summit.

    “It took five centuries, but we managed it — I’m saying that half in jest, but we have at last succeeded.”

    Camille Gijs and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

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    Sarah Anne Aarup and Antonia Zimmermann

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  • James Ray III, lawyer convicted of murdering girlfriend, dies while awaiting sentencing

    James Ray III, lawyer convicted of murdering girlfriend, dies while awaiting sentencing

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    A New Jersey lawyer who faced a lengthy sentence for murdering his longtime girlfriend before fleeing to Cuba five years ago died Sunday after he was found unconscious in his cell, authorities said.

    James Ray III, 60, was pronounced dead Sunday at University Hospital in Newark, where he had been taken following a medical emergency call at the county correctional facility, Essex County’s chief of staff, Phil Alagia, said in a statement. The medical examiner’s office will determine the cause of death and an investigation is underway, he said.

    Ray had been found unconscious in his cell on Sunday evening, according to Jim Troisi, the vice president of the union representing high-ranking jail staff. A sergeant who found him administered Narcan, a drug that treats overdoses, before he was taken to the hospital, Troisi said.

    Authorities said Ray shot 44-year-old Angela Bledsoe in October 2018 in their Montclair home after she dropped their daughter off at school. Prosecutors said she had been planning to move out and was scheduled to meet with a realtor that day. Ray argued he acted in self-defense.

    Mother Found Dead
    James Ray III stands as the jury enters the courtroom before opening arguments for Ray’s murder trial in Judge Verna Leath’s courtroom in Newark on Wednesday, March 29, 2023.

    Danielle Parhizkaran / AP


    After the slaying, Ray prepared several documents, withdrew checks and cash from a local bank, picked up his daughter from school and dropped her off with his brother at a New Jersey restaurant, and then fled to Mexico and Cuba, authorities said. His life as a fugitive didn’t last long — he was returned to the United States in November 2018 and has been in custody ever since.

    Jurors deliberated for just three hours last month before convicting Ray of first-degree murder and weapons charges, prosecutors said. He faced 30 years to life in prison, NJ.com reported.

    “He was reasonably stoic,” recalled Thomas Ashley, one of two defense attorneys at the two-month trial in Newark. “He didn’t show any emotion.”

    Raised in Brooklyn, Ray served as a Marine and then spent two years as a New York City police officer before earning an M.B.A. and going to law school.

    Ashley told NJ.com that he hadn’t met with Ray since his conviction, but he said Ray seemed resigned as the verdict was read.

    “This is a tragic ending to a tragic story,” Ashley said.

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  • U.S. confirms China has had spy base in Cuba since 2019

    U.S. confirms China has had spy base in Cuba since 2019

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    U.S. confirms China has had spy base in Cuba since 2019 – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    The Biden administration confirmed Saturday that China has been operating a spy base in Cuba — just one hundred miles from the shores of Florida. This comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that China tentatively agreed to pay Cuba billions of dollars to set up an electronic eavesdropping facility. Gordon Lubold, White House and national security reporter for the Wall Street Journal, joins CBS News to discuss what we know about the base.

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