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The FBI disclosed new details in an episode of its official podcast "Inside the FBI" about the case of Víctor Manuel Rocha, the former diplomat who spied for Cuba for over four decades, gaining access to the National Security Council and even the White House itself.
According to special agents from the FBI who participated in the program titled “Catching a Cuban Spy,” Rocha began collaborating with Cuban intelligence in 1973 and operated under the pseudonym "El Búho" for the General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) of the regime, a report from Univision notes.
"I had tremendous access, from the Contra project in Latin America to the National Security Council, the White House, U.S. policy in Cuba, immigration agreements, U.S. government operations, and the identities of officials," an FBI special agent stated on the podcast.
Federal agents detailed that the first mission Cuba assigned to Rocha was to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. His entry into the State Department was also not accidental: "He chose the State Department because they didn't have a polygraph," explained the FBI special agent.
The podcast also revealed the name of the Cuban official who recruited Rocha in Chile in 1973 and trained him: an agent of the DGI known as "Aquiles," who had just returned from fighting in the war in Angola.
"Rocha came to idolize his coach, a Cuban security officer known as 'Achilles', who had just returned from fighting in the war in Angola," noted an FBI special agent.
José Cohen, a former agent of the Cuban state security, interviewed by Univision 23 Miami, described "Aquiles" as "a high-ranking officer within the intelligence service," although he clarified that he was unaware that he was Rocha's coach.
According to the FBI, Rocha provided the DGI with "everything he deemed valuable," including information about operations in Central America that agents described as having fatal consequences.
Rocha served as the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, and as the deputy chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba from July 1994 to July 1995, while he was already working for the Castro regime.
He was arrested in December 2023 in Miami following an undercover FBI operation that had tracked him for years, and sentenced in April 2024 to 15 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 as part of a plea agreement that includes his cooperation to assess the damage caused.
The revelations come in the context of the maximum pressure policy of the Trump administration against the Cuban dictatorship, which it labeled as a threat to national security.
Cohen warned that the downfall of Rocha might not be the end: "So far, of those discovered, Rocha is the oldest, as he even surpassed Ana Belén Montes, but I do not rule out that at some point individuals may emerge who have been around as long as Rocha."
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