Former US Ambassador Charged With Secretly Spying for Cuba for 40 Years

Attorney General Merrick Garland has called it one of the “highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations” ever experienced by the U.S. government.

Bolivian President Hugo Banzer shakes hands with Victor Manuel Rocha (R), the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, during a ceremony in the Goverment Palace in La Paz, Bolivia, on Aug. 3, 2000. Reuters

A retired U.S. Department of State employee who served on the National Security Council and as an ambassador has been arrested for committing multiple federal crimes after allegedly acting as an agent of the Cuban regime for decades.

According to the Justice Department, federal prosecutors charged the former U.S. diplomat Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, of Miami, Florida, with three primary federal offenses: conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General, acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General, and with using a passport obtained by false statement.