{"id":84720,"date":"2023-12-05T01:42:19","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T01:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.estaql.com\/ex-us-ambassador-manuel-rocha-accused-of-being-cuban-spy-us-news\/"},"modified":"2023-12-05T01:42:19","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T01:42:19","slug":"ex-us-ambassador-manuel-rocha-accused-of-being-cuban-spy-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/ex-us-ambassador-manuel-rocha-accused-of-being-cuban-spy-us-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-US ambassador Manuel Rocha accused of being Cuban spy | US News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ex-US ambassador Manuel Rocha accused of being Cuban spy | US News<\/h2>\n

Ex-US ambassador Manuel Rocha accused of being Cuban spy | US News<\/p>\n

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A former US ambassador to Bolivia has been charged with secretly acting as a Cuban agent for “more than 40 years”.<\/p>\n

Manuel Rocha, who was arrested at his Miami home on Friday, served as the top US diplomat to Bolivia<\/strong> <\/strong>between 2000 and 2002.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors from the US Justice Department accuse him of promoting the Cuban<\/strong> <\/strong>government’s interests, Sky’s US partner NBC News reported.<\/p>\n

This is not a crime unless it is done on US soil without registering with the department as a foreign lobbyist, the broadcaster added.<\/p>\n

Rocha, 73, appeared in court on Monday and is alleged to have begun his “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf in 1981 or earlier.<\/p>\n

It was one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US government by a foreign agent, department officials said.<\/p>\n

He met Cuban intelligence operators, lied to US government officials about his travels and contacts and used a passport obtained through a false statement, prosecutors claimed in court documents filed in Florida<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The charges reflect a harsher approach by the department towards the prosecution of illicit foreign lobbying.<\/p>\n

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\n Image:<\/span>
\n Bolivian President Hugo Banzer (L) with Manuel Rocha in 2000
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During his 25-year career as a US diplomat, Rocha served as ambassador to Bolivia and held another senior post – head of mission – in Argentina.<\/p>\n

He worked for the US Interests Section in Havana in the mid-1990s, a time when the US lacked full diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s communist government.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors claim Cuba’s notoriously sophisticated intelligence services first began using Rocha in 1981 when he first joined the US State Department.<\/p>\n

They added that the alleged links continued well after he left government service more than two decades later.<\/p>\n

The FBI learned about the relationship last year, it is alleged, and arranged a series of undercover meetings with an agent posing as a Cuban intelligence operator.<\/p>\n

In one encounter in Miami last year, Rocha is alleged to have said: “I always told myself, ‘The only thing that can put everything we have done in danger is – is … someone’s betrayal, someone who may have met me, someone who may have known something at some point’.”<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:<\/strong>
British teenager killed in Gaza while fighting for IDF
Singer hits out at magazine for ‘outing’ her
Woman dies after shark attack while swimming with daughter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in Colombia, Rocha joined the US foreign service in 1981.<\/p>\n

As ambassador to Bolivia, he warned Bolivians that if they voted for Evo Morales in the upcoming election, the US would cut off aid to the poor South American country.<\/p>\n

Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the US National Security Council.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Ex-US ambassador Manuel Rocha accused of being Cuban spy | US News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ex-US ambassador Manuel Rocha accused of being Cuban spy | US News Ex-US ambassador Manuel Rocha accused of being Cuban spy | US News A former US ambassador to Bolivia has been charged with secretly acting as a Cuban agent for “more than 40 years”. Manuel Rocha, who was arrested at his Miami home on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-estaql"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estaql.com\/seo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}