One of the most dangerous US spies who worked for Cuba was released after 20 years in prison

American Ana Belen Montes, who was arrested in 2001 and sentenced the following year to 25 years in prison for spying for the Cuban government, was released from prison on Friday. Now the 65-year-old military intelligence analyst has been released from federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas, and has been on parole for five years.

Arrested on September 21, 2001 by the federal police, she admitted to spying for Cuba for almost a decade from 1992 to 2001, although the FBI suspects that she began spying as early as 1985. She was accused of passing information to Havana . names of US agents operating in Cuba and details of US fleet maneuvers.

Ana Montes was one of the “most dangerous spies” arrested by the United States: she would have almost completely revealed the operations of American intelligence on the island, the BBC clarifies. In 2012, Michelle Van Cleve, who served as the head of counterintelligence under President George W. Bush, told Congress that Montes had “compromised everything – practically everything – we knew about Cuba and how we would do it.”

Unlike other high-profile spies caught during the Cold War, Ana Montes, born to a Puerto Rican father, acted out of ideology, not greed. His work for Cuban intelligence was partly motivated by his opposition to the Reagan administration’s activities in Latin America. She was outraged by US support for the Nicaraguan Contras, a right-wing insurgent group suspected of committing war crimes and other atrocities in the country, according to a report by the Department of Defense Inspector General.

“Help Nicaragua”

Ana Belen Montes was working in the Ministry of Justice when she attracted the attention of Cuban agents by expressing her displeasure. First, a classmate from Johns Hopkins University approached the American in 1984, then the American was introduced to a Cuban intelligence agent, according to British media. During a dinner in New York, she “did not hesitate to work with the Cubans to ‘help’ Nicaragua,” the inspector general’s report said.

She then received a position as an intelligence expert at the Defense Intelligence Agency. For almost two decades, she regularly met with Cuban managers in Washington restaurants. To transmit her top-secret information, she sent coded messages through a program provided by Cuba. She received orders through shortwave transmitters and also used a pay phone located next to the Washington Zoo.

Colleague reported

Back in 1996, a colleague denounced her. But American authorities began investigating him only four years later. She was arrested in September 2001. Once released, Ana Montes will be under surveillance for five years. He will be prohibited from working for the government or contacting foreign agents without permission.

But Pete Lapp, one of the FBI agents who arrested her, thinks contact with Cuban agents is unlikely. “That part of his life is over,” he told CBS News. She did what she did for them. I can’t imagine him risking his freedom. »