Former United States Ambassador to Bolivia Victor Manuel Rocha was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday (Apr. 12) after admitting to acting as an agent of Cuba in what the Justice Department called one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the US government.
Reuters reported that Rocha, 73, served as Washington's ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002. After being initially charged in December, he pleaded guilty to two charges, including acting as an illegal foreign agent.
The former diplomat secretly supported Cuba's ruling Communist Party and aided the country's intelligence gathering against Washington for over four decades, including a 20-year career in the State Department, US prosecutors said.
"Today's plea brings an end to more than four decades of betrayal and deceit by Mr. Rocha," US Justice Department senior national security official David Newman said during a press conference in Miami. "For most of his life, Mr. Rocha lived a lie. While holding various senior positions in the US government, he was secretly acting as the Cuban government's agent. That is a staggering betrayal of the American people."
Rocha admitted his decades of work for Cuba and boasted about his ability to avoid detection in a series of meetings in 2022 and 2023 with an undercover FBI agent who posed as a representative of Cuba's foreign intelligence service, according to a criminal complaint filed in Miami federal court.
"What we have done...it's enormous. More than a grand slam," Rocha told the undercover agent, according to the complaint.
Rocha agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors requiring him to divulge details of his interactions with Cuban intelligence.
However, US officials said they might never know the full extent of Rocha's cooperation with Cuban officials in Havana.
Prosecutors added that Rocha sought out positions that would give him access to sensitive information and influence over US foreign policy.
According to court documents, he worked for the State Department from 1981 to 2002, including as a member of the White House's National Security Council from 1994 to 1995.
A lawyer for Rocha did not respond to requests for comment.
