[Spooks] Defense Analyst Pleads Guilty as Spy

[William Knowles]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50284-2002Mar19.html

By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 19, 2002; 1:13 PM 

The Defense Intelligence Agency's senior analyst for Cuban issues 
pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to being a spy for Fidel 
Castro's government, admitting that she had used her highly classified 
position to steal information for 16 years and pass it along to a 
nation the State Deparment lists as a sponsor of international 
terrorism.

Working with shortwave radios, encrypted transmissions and a pay phone 
outside the National Zoo, Ana Belen Montes told the Cuban government 
the names of four American "covert intelligence officers" working in 
Cuba; that the U.S. government had tracked down the location of 
various Cuban military installations; and informed them of a "special 
access program related to the national defense of the United States," 
prosecutors said today.

She spied for the Cuban government from when she joined the DIA in 
1985 until she was arrested on Sept. 21 of last year. She worked as 
head of the Cuba section since 1992, but did not arouse suspicion 
until the FBI began a counter-intelligence investigation of her 12 
months before her arrest.

"Montes used her position as an intelligence officer and, 
subsequently, a senior intelligence analyst . . . to gather writings, 
documents, materials and information, classified for reasons of 
national security, for unlawful communication, delivery and 
transmission to the government of Cuba," said Ronald Walutes, the 
assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, reading from the 
indictment.

When judge Ricardo M. Urbina asked Montes if those charges were 
correct, she replied, "Those statements are true and accurate."

Montes, 45, an American citizen of Puerto Rican descent, will serve a 
25-year prison term if she cooperates with FBI and other federal 
investigators during the next six months, telling them what she knows 
of Cuban intelligence activities in the United States, according to 
terms of the plea agreement.

She officially pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit 
espionage, a crime that could have carried the death penalty.

Her attorney, Plato Cacheris, said Montes did not receive any money 
for her 15 years of work for the Cuban government, but instead was 
motivated by her personal sense of justice for the impoverished island 
nation.

"She engaged in these activities because of her belief that U.S. 
policy does not afford Cubans respect, tolerance and understanding," 
said Cacheris, who has represented several other high-profile clients 
accused of espionage. "She was motivated by her desire to help the 
Cuban people and did not receive any compensation."

Cacheris characterized the plea deal and aiding the U.S. government as 
"an attempt to help herself."

It was unclear today how much damage was done by Montes' work. The 
four agents she identified to the Cuban government are "alive and 
safe," according to U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard Jr. Government 
officers who attended today's sentencing did not go beyond that, 
declining to say if they were aware of Cuba passing along the 
information to hostile countries or organizations.

Montes was born on a military installation in Germany. She was a 1979 
graduate of the University of Virginia, and received a master's degree 
from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International 
Studies in 1988.

She had joined the DIA, the 7,000-member U.S. agency that produces 
military intelligence about foreign countries, in 1985. She was 
assigned to analyze Cuban information in 1992. She lived alone in an 
apartment in the 3000 block of Macomb Street NW, drove her Toyota Echo 
to work each day at Bolling Air Force Base and went undetected until 
the fall of 2000.

Then, acting on an undisclosed break in the case, FBI agents began 
tracking her movements. They obtained court permission to break into 
her apartment, copy computer data and slip out undetected.

They found that Montes communicated with Cuba by high-frequency, 
encrypted transmissions that she picked up on a shortwave radio. 
Listening with an earpiece, she would copy down a series of numbers, 
each coming in a set of bursts. She would key those numbers into her 
Toshiba laptop, where a deciphering code given to her by Cuban 
intelligence officers would translate the numbers into Spanish 
language text.

She often sent information back by using pay phones in Northwest 
Washington and in Bethesda, to transmit similar encoded information to 
an electronic pager number. She paid for the long-distance calls by 
using a pre-paid calling card, preventing the numbers she dialed from 
appearing on an itemized bill.

"This was a classic case of espionage and counter-espionage," said Van 
A. Harp, director of the FBI's Washington field office.



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