[Spooks] V2A and Defense Analyst Pleads Guilty as Spy

[Terry Bendell]

They simply change the key for that cell/person



----------
>From: "Dave Payne, Sr." <davepaynesr@yahoo.com>
>To: spooks@mailman.qth.net
>Subject: [Spooks] V2A and Defense Analyst Pleads Guilty as Spy
>Date: Wed, Mar 27, 2002, 3:09 PM
>

>The article says that she was using a laptop
>computer to decode the numbers she received from
>Cuba via shortwave. Looks like we (the US) have
>her computer and therefore, the deciphering
>program. I assume the Cubans know about this. Has
>anyone noticed anything different out of V2a
>recently? I've not, but it seems the cubans would
>be reacting somehow.
>
>
>
>
>
>--- William Knowles <wk@c4i.org> wrote:
>>
>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.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>
>*=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D*
>> "Communications without intelligence is noise; 
>> Intelligence
>> without communications is irrelevant." Gen
>> Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
>>
>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>> C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence -
>> http://www.c4i.org
>>
>*=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D*
>> 
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>=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>"God hath spoken to a fish, but never to a beast."
>             --- Izaak Walton, "The Compleat Angler."
>
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