For nearly 17 years, Montez collected classified US government intelligence and passed it on to intelligence agents in Havana. She has identified at least four of her U.S. officers operating covertly in Cuba, provided classified photos and documents, and said the U.S. was monitoring several of its military installations. She warned Cuban authorities, The Washington Post reported in 2002.
Montez had access to classified information in her role as a senior analyst on Cuban affairs at the DIA, an agency that provides military intelligence on foreign countries, where she has worked since 1985. She was responsible for sharing classified US government information about Havana with other federal agencies.
Unbeknownst to her colleagues, who dubbed her the “Queen of Cuba,” Montez passed the information directly to Cuban authorities.
“She is one of the most pernicious spies the United States has ever discovered,” Michelle Van Cleve, senior national counterintelligence official under President George W. Bush, told a House subcommittee in 2012. spoke at the meeting.
“After 16 years of spying on Cuba’s behalf, she has compromised virtually everything we know about Cuba, how we operate in and against Cuba. So the Cubans were well aware of everything we knew about them and were able to use that to their advantage,” Van Cleave added.
Van Cleave, who oversaw an internal damages assessment of Montez’s actions, told a House panel that the former analyst used her position to influence DIA colleagues’ estimates about Cuba.
According to federal prosecutors, Montez was motivated by ideology rather than financial incentives. They told the court she was paid nothing but her expenses.
“I followed my conscience more than the law,” Montez told a judge who was convicted of espionage conspiracy in 2002 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. “Our government’s policy towards Cuba is cruel, unfair, rooted in our neighbors, and morals that help protect the island from our efforts to impose our values and political system.” I felt an obligation.
“She secretly and without remorse systematically violated classified information related to national defense across the country,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald L. Waltz Jr. said at the time.
After Montez was arrested by the FBI, Cuban officials publicly praised him as an ideological ally.
According to the FBI, Montez was communicating with his Cuban handlers via shortwave radio, computer diskettes and pagers, The Post reported in 2001.
Federal agents entered Montez’s apartment with court authorization in 2001 and found a shortwave radio, earphones and a laptop there. According to the FBI’s affidavit, they covertly copied the computer hard his drive, recovered deleted texts, and uncovered evidence supporting the allegations against Montes.
Investigators began tracking Montez, who made a short phone call outside the National Zoo, gas stations, and other locations in Washington and northwest Maryland, leaving an apparently encrypted message in her pocket. I observed it sending to Bell.
Montez was arrested on September 21, 2001 at Bolling Air Force Base, the headquarters of the DIA in Washington, and FBI agents handcuffed her out of the building.
Jim Popkin, author of a new book about Montez, said in an interview with The Washington Post Live the day before her release, “She was a very capable spy, quiet, unassuming, and an advocate of national security in the United States.” It has had a devastating effect on insurance,” he said. .
According to Popkin, Montes kept a low profile in the DIA, rarely deleting documents, preferring instead to commit sensitive information to memory.
“Everything was in her head, so the day’s work ended around 5:00. So I started working nights typing that classified information into a Toshiba laptop,” Popkin said. recorded it on disk and met with Washington or Cuban representatives at a convenient and safe time.”
According to the FBI, officials were first alerted to Montez in 1996 when one of his DIA colleagues raised suspicions “on a hunch” that he was acting for Cuban intelligence services. rice field. The FBI said Montez was questioned by security officials, but no action was taken.
Four years later, when security officials learn that the FBI is trying to identify a suspected Cuban agent operating in Washington, they contact the FBI about Montez and have the agent launch an investigation into her. urged to
U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina ruled in 2002 that Montez should be kept under surveillance for five years after his release. Terms attached to her release on Friday were not immediately clear.
Shane Harris and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.
