CuIS
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Jerry Brewer of Criminal Justice International Associates pens an op-ed (via Mexidata.info) on whether U.S. concessions are justified in light of the Castro regime’s destabilizing campaign in Latin America and continuous iron grip at home:
As Cuba and Latin America’s leftist regimes continue their efforts to prevent the U.S. from assisting its democratic neighbors with drug interdiction, and in the fight against transnational criminal insurgencies — violence and deaths continue to soar. In Venezuela alone, reports indicate a murder rate of 220 per 100,000 people. This is a higher rate than Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez.
Indeed, Caracas may currently be the most violent city in the world.
The U.S. must remember that Cold War espionage against us, by Cuba, is still alive and well. Too, the Guantanamo base remains a strategic observation hub for Caribbean activities that potentially threaten free people within this hemisphere. And it is clear Fidel Castro wants us out.
President Obama holds the cards. To free the Cuban people is a decision of the Castro regime.
(Image: Front page of August 13 edition of El Nacional showing homicide victims in a Caracas morgue as a result of spiraling violence.)
Tags: Caracas, Cuba, drug interdiction, Fidel Castro, Guantanamo, Latin America, Mexico, transnational criminal insurgencies, U.S., Venezuela
“Cuban intelligence agents also are spying on U.S. operations and intentions around the world, and the Cuban spies are working with “a number of U.S. adversaries and competitors.”
—Retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair (former U.S. Director of National Intelligence) during his annual threat briefing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in February, 2010.
Tags: Cuban intelligence agents, Cuban spies, Dennis C. Blair
The man behind the operation that broke up the most important organization involved in falsified documents in the United States was a double-agent who worked for Cuba and the United States. His codename was Lázaro.
In statements to EFE, Lázaro (whose real name is Robert Kelly) described the principal goal of “Tag Operation,” which was to prove Islamic terrorists used false documents sold by a [Mexican] group, however, the operation could not be completed because there was a lack of cooperation between U.S. security agencies.
Kelly (63-years old) is writing a book titled, Non Official Cover: The History of Lázaro (Sin cobertura oficial: la historia de Lázaro), where he relates his first mission was to infiltrate the Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence (Dirección de Inteligencia de Cuba) at the end of 1999 when he created a web page called La Voz de Cuba to defend the return of Elián González to his father.
He also asserts in his book that he was involved in the sale of SAM missiles in Nicaragua and in the defection of a Cuban scientist to the United States.
More of the EFE piece here.
Miami New Times profiled Kelly in 2009 after having approached the weekly about his tales of intrigue.
(Image: Original Spy vs Spy cartoon drawn by Antonio Prohias and featured in MAD magazine #60, January 1961.)
Tags: Cuba, Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence, Cuban intelligence, CuIS, Dirección de Inteligencia de Cuba, double agent, Elián González, Islamic terrorists, Lázaro, Robert Kelly, Sin cobertura oficial: la historia de Lázaro, Tag Operation, US
The 73-year-old great grandson of Alexander Graham Bell was sentenced to life in prison without parole for quietly spying for Cuba for nearly a third of a century from inside the State Department. His wife was sentenced to 5½ years. Retired intelligence analyst Kendall Myers said he meant his country no harm and stole secrets only to help Cuba’s people who “have good reason to feel threatened” by U.S. intentions of ousting the communist Castro government. [AP via Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
More from WaPo; BBC; VOA; Politico; Bloomberg and WSJ.
(Image: Artist rendering of Kendall Myers and his wife in U.S. Federal Court. The couple shared an admiration of the Cuban revolution. By Getty Images.)
Tags: Castro government, Cuba, Cuban Government, espionage, Kendall Myers, spying, State Department
Stratfor analytical article on insurgent/terrorist groups using criminal activity to fund its operations. A reference is made within the piece to the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS):
For the militant group, the addition of a state sponsor can provide an array of modern weaponry and a great deal of useful training. For example, the FIM-92 Stinger missiles that the United States gave to Afghan militants fighting Soviet forces greatly enhanced the militants’ ability to counter the Soviets’ use of air power. The training provided by the Soviet KGB and its allies, the Cuban DGI and the East German Stasi, revolutionized the use of improvised explosive devices in terrorist attacks. Members of the groups these intelligence services trained at camps in Libya, Lebanon and Yemen, such as the German Red Brigades, the Provincial Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the Japanese Red Army and various Palestinian militant groups (among others), all became quite adept at using explosives in terrorist attacks.
Tags: criminal activity, Cuban intelligence service, CuIS, DGI, funding, guerrillas and terrorists, insurgents
El Universal‘s interview with Simon Bolivar University graduate professor José Machillanda, who analyzes in his forthcoming book the transformation of a once professional military in Venezuela into a mere armed militia:
A professional military at the service of the State for the purposes of defense has turned into an armed militia under a political project. Hugo Chávez has “transmuted” the military to secure both his stay in office and the implementation of the 21st century socialism.
[...]
2002-2007
In the aftermath of the coup attempt on April 11, 2002, there was a void of power with top military officers being unable to put order in the Venezuelan society. The purge began, as well as the enforcement of new laws and the adoption of a new Cuban-style doctrine of “people’s war.” Corruption prevailed; Cuban militaries had a high profile. In this period, the president managed to centralize all administrative functions; reduced strategic studies and logistics, and fully implemented training and intelligence of the Cuban militia.
The original Spanish article is here.
Tags: Hugo Chavez, José Machillanda, Venezuela military
Dirk Rijmenants of the Cipher Machines and Cryptology website authored a paper on the flaws attributed to communication methods used by the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) with its agents (e.g. Ana Belen Montes, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez, and Walter Kendall Myers) in operations against the United States as evidenced in FBI and U.S. District Courts’ documents:
One common link between all recent spy cases is how these agents received their operational messages. Apparently, the clandestine communication methods, described in this paper, are standard CuIS procedures. Despite CuIS using a cryptographic system, proven to be unbreakable, the FBI succeeded in reading some of these operational messages and subsequently used them in court. This paper is based on official FBI documents and the court papers on these espionage cases. It shows procedural and implementation flaws by the CuIS and its agents.
(Image: A “cheat sheet” provided by Cuban intelligence that Ana Montes used to help her encrypt and decrypt messages to and from her handlers. By Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
Tags: Ana Belen Montes, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez, Cipher Machines and Cryptology, Cuban intelligence service, CuIS, Dirk Rijmenants, FBI, U.S. Disctrict Courts, Walter Kendall Myers
Jerry Bremer, C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International Associates (a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami, Florida) asks in his piece, “Cuba’s Agenda in Latin America Remains Clearly Nebulous,” via Mexidata.info, whether Cuba is a conventional military threat to anyone, which perhaps they are not, however. In the intelligence sphere, especially in Latin America, they apparently are so:
The history of Cuba’s Castro regime shows that they have trained thousands of communist guerrillas and terrorists, and sponsored violent acts of aggression and subversion in most democratic nations of the southwestern hemisphere. U.S. government studies within the intelligence community documented a total of 3,043 international terrorist incidents in the decade of 1968 to 1978. Within that study, “over 25 percent occurred in Latin America.”
[...]
Recent reports by the U.S. DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] show that Cuba has been expanding intelligence operations in the Middle East and South Asia.
[...]
…Cuba’s current intelligence and spy apparatus has been described and reported to be an active “contingency of very well-trained, organized and financed agents.”
[...]
Cuba has also maintained a well-organized and ruthless intelligence presence within Mexico, as have the Russians. Much of their activity involved in U.S. interests that include recruiting disloyal U.S. military, government, and private sector specialists.
The rest of the story is here.
Tags: conventional military threat, Cuba, Cuban intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Intelligence, intelligence sphere, Latin America, Middle East, Military, Russia, South Asia, Venezuela, Western Hemisphere
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Stratfor issued a special report on Venezuela’s armed forces in early May, whereby the private global intelligence company opines:
Controlling Venezuela requires controlling oil and the armed forces, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has managed to do both for more than a decade. Challenges to this control have emerged, however, such as enormous debt at the state-owned oil company and dissatisfaction in the armed forces at the role of Cubans in the South American country’s military. Still, Chavez’s hold appears secure so long as the oil revenues keep flowing.
And on the Cubanization of the Venezuelan armed forces:
The salary increase for the military also comes amid rising public criticism of the politicization and so-called Cubanization of the Venezuelan military. Former Venezuelan Brig. Gen. Antonio Rivero claimed the “the presence and meddling of Cuban soldiers” in the armed forces prompted his April retirement. Rivero said Cubans were operating at some of the highest levels in the Venezuelan military, delivering intelligence, communications, weapons and other training for the troops. He also denounced the extent to which Chavez has undermined military professionalism, and complained of the government’s move to expand its civilian militia. In the same address in which he announced the salary increase for the military, Chavez addressed Rivero’s complaints, saying he was saddened by the general’s attempt to draw attention to himself. Chavez also defended his decision to embrace the Cuban military presence by criticizing previous Venezuelan administrations for allowing the U.S. military to staff the offices of the country’s Army Command Headquarters and manage Venezuelan state secrets.1
While the opposition is eager to exploit the public relations sensation of a general condemning Chavez’s military policy, retiring generals and the Cuban links into the Venezuelan military are not exactly startling developments in Venezuela. The deep integration of Cuban forces in the Venezuelan military has been an open secret in recent years. By having enlisted soldiers and trainers percolate throughout the armed services at virtually all levels, the Chavez government has been able to tap Cuba’s security and intelligence expertise to keep tabs on dissidents and quash any potential threats to the government. For its part, Cuba benefits from being able to influence the policies of a regional, oil-producing heavyweight in South America. As Chavez’s political and economic vulnerabilities have increased, so have the opportunities for Cuba to entrench itself in Venezuela. 2
This symbiotic relationship saw its clearest manifestation with the July 2008 passage of the Organic Law of the National Armed Forces. The law redefined the Venezuelan Armed Forces from a politically nonaligned professional institution (as stated in the 1999 constitution) to a patriotic, popular and anti-imperialist body, as described in the legislation. Chavez, not wanting to be caught off guard again by his generals as he was during an April 2002 coup attempt, created the law to develop a military primarily tasked with protecting and defending the regime from internal threats. The Cuban government, wanting to ensure Venezuelan dependency on Cuban security, is believed to have had a role in one of the more controversial articles in the law. This provision allows for foreign nationals (i.e., Cubans) who have graduated from Venezuelan defense institutions to earn the rank of officer in the Venezuelan armed forces.3
Another clause in the law forces officers into retirement if they are not promoted after two years. Though such provisions are common in many militaries, Caracas has used it with unusual frequency as a tool to remove potential dissenters. Under this system, political allegiance can easily supersede military merit when it comes to awarding promotions or forcing resignations. Cuban advisers, who have been tasked with identifying localized threats from within the armed forces, are believed to have significant influence on these decisions.4
Chavez recently remarked in Havana that he felt like he was “one more Cuban.” But many Venezuelans do not like the Cubans’ methods or their growing presence in the country, and Cuban integration in the Venezuelan armed forces appears to have alienated several high-ranking members of the military. Chavez, however, has knowingly incurred this risk, and undermining powerful military leaders was likely one of his key goals. Problematic generals can be forced into retirement while the Cubans closely scrutinize the remaining military elite, who are given perks to keep them loyal to the government.5
While this comes at the cost of considerable expertise and professionalism, Chavez’s goal is to ensure that the upper ranks of the military lack the operational control to challenge the president. Mid-tier members of the military probably worry the Venezuelan president more, however. After all, Chavez was a lieutenant colonel with the charisma to rally a sizable portion of the military and lower classes around him in his 1992 coup attempt and victorious 1998 presidential campaign. As long as he is the one occupying the presidency, Chavez does not wish to see any lieutenant colonels following in his footsteps. Since Chavez lacks the same reach and oversight with the lower ranks of the military than he has with the generals, pay raises are a way to help mitigate potential threats emanating from below.6
Notes
1. Stratfor. “Special Report: Venezuela’s Control of the Armed Forces.” 3 May 2010.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
(Image: Venezuelan soldiers participate in parade with Russian arms. AFP/Getty Images.)
Tags: Cuban advisers, Havana, Hugo Chavez, Stratfor, Venezuela's Control of the Armed Forces, Venezuelan armed forces
Andres Oppenheimer’s piece on Cubans running Venezuela:
Cuba is increasingly worried about Chávez’s political future in light of Venezuela’s growing food shortages, electricity blackouts, massive corruption and Latin America’s highest inflation rates. Fearing that it could lose the 100,000 barrels of subsidized oil a day that Venezuela sends to the island, Cuba is on a rescue mission to help manage Venezuela’s inefficient and corruption-ridden government offices.
[...]
Venezuela’s growing alliance with Cuba — “Venecuba,” or “Cubazuela,” depending on which country you believe has the upper hand — is a marriage of convenience that may backfire for Chávez.
[...]
Chávez, who has made a religion of “national sovereignty,” may be playing with fire by allowing Cuba to run his country.
While The Economist addresses the wrecking of Venezuela:
But to many others, including this newspaper, he has come to embody a new, post-cold-war model of authoritarian rule which combines a democratic mandate, populist socialism and anti-Americanism, as well as resource nationalism and carefully calibrated repression.
[...]
In Mr Chávez’s case, that claim has been backed up above all by oil. On the one hand, he has deployed oil revenues abroad to gain allies, and to sustain the Castro brothers in power in Cuba.
[...]
He has been elected three times, and won four referendums. He has hollowed out Venezuela’s democracy, subjugating the courts, bullying the media and intimidating opponents. But he has been unable, or unwilling, to disregard or repress opposition to the same degree as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or even Russia’s Vladimir Putin, let alone the Castro brothers in Cuba.
(Photo: Army General Raúl Castro greets Venezuela President Hugo Chávez upon his arrival in Havana, 20 FEB 2009. AP.)
Tags: Andres Oppenheimer, Caracas, Cuba, Cubazuela, Havana, Hugo Chavez, The Economist, Venecuba, Venezuela
A senior National Clandestine Service officer of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) using the nome de plume of Juan wrote a review (published last September in the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence periodical Studies in Intelligence) of the book Memorias de un Soldado Cubano: Vida y Muerte de la Revolución [Memories of a Cuban Soldier: Life and Death of the Revolution] by Cuban defector and former intelligence agent Dariel Alarcon Ramirez aka “Benigno”.
Juan’s review relates Benigno’s exposé as a participant in Cuban intelligence activities:
This book is not about politics or ideology. It is a personal account in which the seasoned security official off-handedly exposes, often for the first time, a myriad of Cuban operations—a quality that is sure to appeal irresistibly to fans of intelligence literature. Benigno confirms much of what the United States has suspected of Cuban activities, but at times he provides brand new revelations of the involvement or extent of involvement of Cuban intelligence in seminal events from the 1960s into the 1990s.
And sums up:
The events Benigno chronicles fill gaps for those who have closely followed the 40 years of Cuban-assisted challenges to US security. The enthralling true-life tale of armed anti-Americanism, communist challenge, Cuban defiance, chicanery, espionage, and good vs. evil (told from the side of evil) is a must read for students of intelligence, the era, or the country. Unfortunately, Benigno’s attention-getting historical account of the Cuban threat will remain out of reach to potentially interested readers of English only.
Click here to read the rest of the review (pdf).
Tags: Benigno, Cuban intelligence, Cuban intelligence agents, Cuban intelligence operatives, Cuban intelligence personnel, Dariel Alarcon Ramirez, Memorias de un Soldado Cubano, National Clandestine Service officer
Via New York Times:
The purge has revealed a power struggle at the highest levels of government, leading to the fall of some of Mr. Chávez’s military comrades and reports of secret dossiers on businessmen compiled here by intelligence agents from Cuba, Venezuela’s top ally.
At a time when Mr. Chávez struggles with public ire over electricity shortages and an economy in recession, the arrests show his ability to nimbly consolidate power while crisis swirls around him. To do so, Mr. Chávez is using tactics like secret-police raids and expropriations of some of his most powerful supporters’ businesses, relying on a dwindling number of military loyalists to carry out his orders.
Tags: Cuban intelligence, Cuban intelligence agents, CuIS, Hugo Chavez
Original Spy vs Spy cartoon drawn by Antonio Prohias and featured in MAD magazine #60, January 1961.
The Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) “totally manages” Venezuelan security and has collaborated in implementing the “Iranian apparatus” in the South American country, reaffirmed several experts at a forum titled ”History of Cuban Espionage and its presence in Venezuela” held in Miami today, reports EFE.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Cuban espionage, Cuban intelligence service, CuIS, Iran, Iranian apparatus, political police, Venezuelan security
BBC Mundo reports on espionage in Latin America and Cuba’s role in it.
And of course there is Cuba.
“Both China and Russia’s services have a close relationship with the intelligence community there in an advisory role,” says Mr [Robert] Munks of Jane’s Intelligence Review.
Experts say this “advisory role” that Cuba has with Russia and China is spreading to other parts of Latin America.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: China, Cuba, Havana, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Jane's Intelligence Review, Latin America, Russia, Spies, Venezuela
Smiley meets his nemesis Karla face-to-face in the BBC televised serialization of John Le Carré's Smiley's People.
Babalu Blog has posted the following letter written by Cuban spy-hunter, Lt. Col. Chris Simmons (U.S. Army Reserve, Counterintelligence), to the Miami Herald clarifying factual errors in an article about Alberto Coll, whom Simmons has called an agent of influence for the Cuban government. (See CPD’s prior posts here and here for background.)
Too Little, Too Late, And Still Wrong
I was appalled by the errors and omissions in Juan Tamayo’s article “Ex-U.S. Official Was Investigated For Espionage”(7 Sep 09).
The Miami Herald presents only two new facts in this article. First, the FBI’s written acknowledgement that it investigated Dr. Alberto Coll for espionage and second, Coll’s admission that he knew he was the subject of an espionage case rather than a criminal inquiry regarding a travel violation.
In stark contrast to these two meager facts, the errors in the Miami Herald story are numerous:
First, you totally misrepresented Bill Gertz’s brief account of Alberto Coll in his book “Enemies: How America’s Foes Are Stealing Our Vital Secrets–And How We Let It Happen. Officials did not tell Gertz they “believed” [your word] Coll was a spy. Instead, they stated it as a fact. Gertz wrote “Cuba’s intelligence service had recruited Coll…in part, by using a female agent to seduce him.” Gertz also noted that Coll’s “…spying was uncovered in 2005.” These are not Gertz’s opinions or assessments, but facts provided to him by U.S. Government officials. You could have verified this yourself by calling him directly (his number is on his webpage, “The Gertz File”). You failed to take this elementary fact-checking step, something I confirmed by calling Bill Gertz myself.
Second, Coll maintained a top-secret clearance during his tenure with the U.S. government, not a secret clearance as you reported.
Third, Coll’s security clearance was permanently revoked and his law license suspended for a year following his plea agreement, two easily verifiable facts you omitted.
I am also curious as to the self-serving boast that “a month after his [Coll’s] conviction,” the Miami Herald filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Justice Department. Why did you limit yourself to the Justice Department? After all, Coll worked for the Navy. As such, the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) conducted a joint investigation. Any reputable newspaper would have filed FOIA requests with both entities.
Likewise, you failed to contact Special Agent (Retired) Ron Olive, who led the NCIS office in Newport, Rhode Island during the Coll investigation. Now an author, a simple call to his publisher could have facilitated an interview.
On a related note, when is the Miami Herald going to file a FOIA request for the debriefings of Captain Jesus Raul Perez Mendez? The former Directorate General of Intelligence (DGI) officer defected in 1983 and “outed” at least 67 Cuban Intelligence officers, agents, collaborators and organizations. A three and a half page overview of his reporting has been available on the internet for years. Equally important, Perez Mendez is still alive and as of last year lived in Puerto Rico. When can we expect the Miami Herald to investigate this story? A Pulitzer Prize surely awaits the reporter who lands that exposé.
Chris Simmons
Ashburn, Virginia
Tags: agents of influence, Alberto Coll, Cuban intel, Cuban intelligence operatives, Lt. Col. Chris Simmons
Academic with alleged ties to CuIS in Havana
31 August 2010 at 0017 in Commentary, CuIS, Cuban Intelligence Service, Fidel Castro, Intelligence, Nomenklatura by Armando F. Mastrapa 3d | 1 comment
Julia Sweig, the Council on Foreign Relations resident Cuba expert, accompanied Fidel Castro yesterday to the National Aquarium along with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg from the Atlantic magazine and Adela Dworin, president of the Jewish Community of Cuba.
In October 2008, Cuban spy hunter Lt. Col. Chris Simmons of the Cuban Intelligence Research Center appeared on journalist Oscar Haza‘s Miami-based public affairs television program, A Mano Limpia, exposing individuals allegedly associated with Cuban intelligence.
Ms. Sweig, according to Lt. Col. Simmons, has an alleged association to the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS).
(Image: In the left photograph, Sweig is seated next to Fidel Castro on his left, and in the right photograph, she is to the right wearing what looks to be a red dress with large circular white patterns. Click on images to enlarge. By Estudios Revolución.]
Tags: A Mano Limpia, Council on Foreign Relations, Cuban intelligence service, CuIS, Fidel Castro, Julia Sweig, Lt. Col. Chris Simmons, Oscar Haza