A US ambassador was convicted of spying for Cuba as part of a larger Cuban spy network undermining US interests, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Fox News interview on Saturday.
“People forget that when it comes to things like espionage and influence operations, they actually are an influence and espionage superpower,” Rubio said, adding that Cuba is the only country that “consistently has implanted and embedded spies” within US systems without pay.
According to Rubio, the infiltration of the ambassador, Ana Belén Montes, was one of the “single biggest intelligence failures” of the US and one of the “biggest penetrations” that the Defense Intelligence Agency has ever had.
Additionally, Rubio claimed that Cuba has influenced “every communist left-wing insurgency” that impacted governments throughout Latin America in the past 40 years.
Cuba influences protesters across US, Rubio says
Cuba has also influenced a network of protesters across the US, Rubio said. The same network has been mobilized to support Antifa, Hamas, and former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, along with protesting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“It [these protests] is funded, it is organized, and Cuba is a part of that network, and in some cases a critical part of that network,” Rubio said.
Rubio said that there were large pockets of Cuban sympathizers within the US, specifically within academia and the press, which was how Cuba was able to recruit spies without pay.