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Alleged Cuban agent most recently worked in BigLaw
Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, is seen in a meeting with an undercover FBI agent that is being secretly filmed as he states that something is “more than a grand slam.” Rocha allegedly illegally lobbied for Cuba for decades. Photo by the FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation images, via Wikimedia Commons.
A former U.S. ambassador who was arrested Friday for allegedly acting as a Cuban agent had recently worked at Foley & Lardner as a senior adviser on international business.
Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, was arrested in Miami for alleged spying that began in 1981 and continued to the present.
The Miami Herald, Law.com and CNBC are among the publications with coverage. A Dec. 4 press release from the Department of Justice is here, and the criminal complaint is here.
Rocha, a former Department of State employee, first worked at Foley between 2009 and 2012, according to Law.com. The law firm hired him again last year, where he remained until August of this year.
Rocha had told the Daily Business Review after his second hiring at Foley that he would mostly be helping clients with immigration matters.
“The country that attracts the most new immigrants to the entire planet is the United States,” he told the Daily Business Review when he was hired. “Everyone wants to come to the United States.”
Foley told Law.com that it will not defend Rocha. Foley did not answer Law.com’s questions about whether the firm was contacted by federal agents.
Rocha, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Colombia, was arrested after a series of meeting with an undercover FBI agent he thought was a Cuban representative. He referred to the United States as the enemy; praised the late Fidel Castro, a former leader of Cuba, as the “Comandante;” and referred to his contacts in Cuban intelligence as his “Compañeros,” meaning his comrades, according to the press release.
Rocha had been a State Department employee between 1981 and 2002 in positions that gave him access to nonpublic information, including classified information. He served on the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 and was the U.S. ambassador to Bolivia during the Clinton administration.
From around 2006 until around 2012, Rocha was an adviser to the commander of the U.S. Southern Command, whose areas of responsibility included Cuba.
Rocha is charged with conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the attorney general, with acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the attorney general, and with using a passport obtained by false statement.
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