US charges ex-ambassador with spying for Cuba over decades

FILE PHOTO: Bolivian President Hugo Banzer shakes hands with Victor Manuel Rocha, the then U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia, during a ceremony in the Goverment Palace in La Paz, August 3, 2000. File photo DM/JP/HB

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Monday charged a former ambassador to Bolivia with spying for Cuba for over 40 years, in what the Justice Department described as one of the highest-reaching and longest-lasting infiltrations of the U.S. government by a foreign agent.

Victor Manuel Rocha, who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, was charged with committing multiple federal crimes including acting as an illegal foreign agent and using a fraudulently obtained passport, the Justice Department said in a statement.