As the Rocha pleaded not guilty out-of jail this week to fifteen government matters , FBI and you will State dept. investigators was in fact trying to understand this new case’s biggest destroyed piece: precisely what the longtime diplomat decades testing, challenging from the tend to-murky intelligence community, which is expected to need ages.

S. counterintelligence authorities, Cuban cleverness looking for Anta women defectors, and family and you will acquaintances off Rocha so you’re able to patch together what’s identified up to now from his so-called betrayal, plus the skipped clues and you can warning flags that could has actually helped him avoid analysis for decades.

It was not just Rodriguez’s tipster – exactly who he would not pick toward AP but says is recently interviewed because of the FBI. Officials told the brand new AP you to around 1987, the CIA was aware Castro had a beneficial “super mole” burrowed deep into the You.S. authorities. Specific today suspect it might was basically Rocha which as the no less than 2010 he might was basically on the a short record given to the newest FBI from it is possible to Cuban spies high up into the foreign plan sectors.

Rocha’s attorney failed to address messages seeking to opinion. The newest FBI and CIA denied so you can feedback. The state Company said into the an announcement it can continue to work at relevant businesses to help you “completely measure the overseas plan and national safety implications of them charge.”

“This might be a beneficial monumental screw-right up,” told you Peter Romero, an old assistant assistant from state to own Latin The usa exactly who did that have Rocha. “We are all carrying out a number of soul searching and you may nobody is able to assembled one thing. The guy performed an extraordinary business covering their music.”

Modest Beginnings

He was born in Colombia at years 10 went having his widowed mommy as well as 2 sisters so you’re able to New york. It resided for some time inside the Harlem when you’re their mommy did when you look at the an excellent sweatshop and you will got of the with the aid of eating seal of approval.

A talented basketball athlete with a-sharp intelligence, the guy obtained a scholarship to own minorities from inside the 1965 to visit The latest Taft College, a top-notch boarding college or university into the Connecticut. Straight away he had been catapulted from what he titled an effective “ghetto” engulfed inside the battle riots so you can a refined field of Western wealth.

However, among not absolutely all minorities on university, Rocha states he suffered discrimination – and an effective classmate just who would not space with him – something powered an excellent grudge you to members of the family think may have contributed your to admire Castro’s trend.

Of Taft, he went along to Yale, in which the guy graduated which have remembers that have a qualification in the Latin american studies, following to graduate focus on Harvard and you can Georgetown.

It’s not clear how Rocha may have been recruited by the Cuba but prosecutors state it simply happened a bit in the seventies when he had been however accumulating amounts and you will Western college or university campuses have been teeming with college students sympathetic so you can leftist explanations.

Within the 1973, the season he graduated off Yale, Rocha journeyed in order to Chile, in which prosecutors state the guy turned into an effective “higher friend” off Cuba’s cleverness agency, the entire Directorate regarding Intelligence, otherwise DGI. You to definitely same season, the newest CIA helped topple the latest Castro-supported socialist authorities of Salvador Allende, replacement it that have a brutal army dictatorship.

In the same time, Rocha joined the original of their three marriages, to help you an adult Colombian woman he rarely talked going to family, and you will that is now significantly less than scrutiny getting possible connections so you’re able to Cuba, centered on whoever has been expected of the FBI. New AP is not able to get to the woman or to find people checklist of the wedding.

‘Most of the Part of An excellent PLAN’

Immediately following joining the brand new international service from inside the 1981, among Rocha’s first to another country listings are due to the fact a governmental-army issues officer in the Honduras, in which the guy advised the new Contras in their fight Cuba-backed leftist rebels during the neighboring Nicaragua.