Miami Herald: Cuba's spy network revealed

Published Friday, January 12, 2001, in the Miami Herald

Cuba's spy network revealed

BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES
gepstein@herald.com

Cuba's foreign intelligence agency devotes an entire department to infiltrating exile groups and another department to getting inside the FBI, CIA, State Department and other U.S. governmental agencies, an expert in Cuban spy matters testified Thursday.

Stuart Hoyt Jr., a retired FBI agent, unraveled the hierarchy of Cuba's intelligence services from ``Commander in Chief'' Fidel Castro on down. His testimony provided some context for jurors in the Cuban spy trial, who every day read or hear another acronym related to Cuban intelligence.

None of the jurors is Cuban- American, so they probably would not be expected to know that the Directorate of Intelligence, or DI, is Cuba's main foreign espionage agency.

Within the DI are eight departments, all of which start with the letter M followed by a Roman numeral, said Hoyt, who retired from the FBI in 1994 after 24 years of foreign counter-intelligence work, first against the Soviet Union and later against Cuba.

Hoyt was assigned to field offices in New York, Boston, San Juan and Washington, D.C., and for three years he supervised the agency's anti-Cuba efforts. He still works under contract with the FBI.

Hoyt named the intelligence departments as follows:

MX is the office of the DI's chief, Brig. Gen. Eduardo Delgado Rodriguez.

The indictment in this case used the code ``MX'' for the Havana chief who directed the accused spies to gather information that allegedly helped Cuban MiG warplanes shoot down and kill four Brothers to the Rescue pilots in 1996.

MI is responsible for infiltrating U.S. government agencies.

MIII collects and analyzes all information coming into the DI.

MV supports ``illegal'' intelligence officers, or those who enter the U.S. illegally.

``Legal officers'' arrive legally and operate in official diplomatic missions, including M15, the Cuban mission to the United Nations in New York City; M2, the Cuban embassy in Mexico City; and M6, the Cuban embassy in Madrid.

MIX is ``active measures,'' which refer to the use of disinformation, threats and violence to discredit enemies or otherwise influence someone's actions.

MXI monitors phone calls and airplane radio communications.

MXV handles communications between Havana and agents in the United States.

MXIX infiltrates ``counter-revolutionary'' Cuban exile groups that oppose the Castro regime. Cuba has another group with a name similar to the DI but with a very different function. The Directorate of Counter Intelligence, called CI, works within Cuba handling ``internal control to ensure people don't speak out against the government,'' Hoyt said.

Both the DI and the CI are part of the Ministry of the Interior, MINIT, one of the two most powerful ministries, or departments, in the Cuban government. The second is the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, MINFAR, or the Cuban military, Hoyt said.

The five men on trial are accused of spying for Cuba as part of La Red Avispa, the Wasp Network, whose members allegedly tried to penetrate U.S. military installations and Cuban exile groups.

Hoyt said the network used typical spying techniques, including writing secrets on water-soluble paper that could quickly be destroyed. Jurors saw four such papers.

The network also used ``compartmentalization,'' or limiting each person's knowledge, so that ``in case one is arrested, he will not be able to identify the other.''

The accused spies also communicated with beepers and pay phones, used counter-surveillance measures, post office boxes, fake documents and concealment devices, he said.