Víctor Manuel Rocha, a former American diplomat who served as virtual ambassador to Argentina, among other destinations, He was sentenced this Friday in Miami to 15 years in prison by spy for the Cuban government and defrauding the US government, a case considered one of the largest betrayals in the history of the country’s foreign service.
Rocha, 73, admitted to federal Judge Beth Bloom of Miami federal charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government, crimes that could put him behind bars for several years. His defense attorney had already indicated weeks ago that his client had reached an agreement and agreed to a sentence that was unveiled this Friday in court: 15 years in prison with three years of supervised release and US$500,000 in fines.
The conditions were not revealed, but it is assumed that Rocha knows many secrets of the Cuban government that he could reveal.
Before the agreement, Rocha had declared himself innocent. But after the arrangement declared his guilt and negotiated a conviction in one of the largest cases of deception of American diplomacy and secret services.
The former diplomat spent decades at the US State Department and served in Buenos Aires between 1997 and 2000 as the top representative of the United States in the country, since the embassy did not have an official envoy, although his title was Charge d’affaires. He then went as ambassador to Bolivia and years later he left diplomacy to dedicate himself to private business.
Rocha was a protagonist in the world’s media when he was arrested in Miami on December 1, after an exhaustive FBI investigation, which included the work of an undercover agent who He posed as a Cuban spy and recorded conversations he had with him.
Days later, Rocha was indicted by a Miami grand jury for defrauding the United States and acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, news that shocked American diplomacy.
“This action exposes one of the longest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the United States government by a foreign agent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said when the former diplomat was arrested.
“We allege that, for more than 40 years, Víctor Manuel Rocha served as an agent of the Cuban government and sought and obtained positions within the United States government that would provide him with access to non-public information and the ability to affect the foreign policy of the United States. United States,” he added.
The criminal complaint did not provide details about What information could he have disclosed to Cuba? or how it might have influenced US policy. According to the indictment, Rocha had high-level security clearances, giving him access to top-secret information. Before landing in Argentina and Bolivia, Rocha had been number two at the US embassy in Cuba
The US Foreign Agents Registration Act requires those working under the control of foreign governments to notify the US Attorney General’s office.