Former US Ambassador to Bolivia sentenced to 15 years in prison for being Cuban spy

Former US Ambassador to Bolivia, Victor Manuel Rocha, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role as a Cuban spy.  

Rocha, who previously served on the National Security Council and held the position of US Ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, has admitted to acting as an agent of the Cuban government while in positions of trust within the US government. 

The 73-year-old Rocha pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiring to defraud the US. In addition to his prison sentence, Rocha was ordered to pay a $500,000 fine, serve three years of supervised release, and fulfill a special assessment. 

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division emphasized the severity of Rocha's actions, calling them a “staggering betrayal of the American people” in a statement released by the Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs. 

“Today’s plea and sentencing brings to an end more than four decades of betrayal and deceit by the defendant,” said Olson. “Rocha admitted to acting as an agent of the Cuban government at the same time he held numerous positions of trust in the U.S. government, a staggering betrayal of the American people and an acknowledgment that every oath he took to the United States was a lie." 

Rocha admitted that he secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and served as a covert agent of Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence since 1973. Rocha had access to classified information while serving at the US Department of State. 

In 2022 and 2023, Rocha admitted to his “decades” of work for Cuba to an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a covert Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence representative. 

US Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida emphasized the gravity of Rocha’s crimes and how Rocha believed he would never be caught. 

“Victor Manuel Rocha secretly acted for decades as an agent of a hostile foreign power. He thought the story of his covert mission for Cuba would never be told because he had the intelligence, knowledge, and discipline to never be detected. Rocha underestimated those same skills in the prosecutors and law enforcement agents who worked tirelessly to bring him to justice for betraying his oath to this country,” Lapointe said.