Although spy stories generate public attention, even fascination, many of them have limited impact on real-world events. A lot of espionage cases turn out to be "just spy vs. spy stuff," as the skeptics put it. But sometimes a spy scandal is every bit as big as it seems.

We got one of those on Monday.

The Department of Justice announced the indictment of Victor Manuel Rocha on a raft of serious charges stemming from his four decades acting as an alleged spy for Communist Cuba . The 73-year-old Rocha, a native of Colombia and naturalized U.S. citizen, enjoyed a dulcet life, including attending a boarding school in Connecticut, followed by an undergraduate degree from Yale plus master’s degrees from Harvard and Georgetown. In 1981, Rocha joined the Foreign Service, and over the next 21 years his State Department career prospered. Rocha’s work focused on Latin America, including posts in Mexico and the Dominican Republic, as well as his service as the deputy chief of mission in Argentina, culminating with the ambassadorship to Bolivia from 1999 to 2002. Other assignments — this will become important soon — included secondment to the National Security Council in 1994-95 where Rocha held the Cuba portfolio, then serving with the U.S. Interests Section (our de facto embassy in Cuba before President Barack Obama normalized relations in 2015) from 1997 to 1999.

The entire time, Rocha was a Cuban spy.

According to the DOJ, Rocha was recruited by Cuba’s Direccion de Inteligencia, the infamous DI, in 1981 (although he appears to have had some secret contact with Cubans since 1973). It was his Cuban handlers who instructed Rocha to join the State Department, as he did. His long career with the U.S. government was, in effect, his side gig: Rocha’s real employer was the DI and we should assume that he passed to Havana every American secret he got his hands on. Since Rocha held high-level security clearances — he was the State Department's de facto Cuba maven — the damage here appears to be severe indeed. Neither did that damage cease when Rocha retired from the State Department in 2002. After Foggy Bottom, Rocha cashed in with the private sector, including work for a Miami law firm, plus membership on the Council of Foreign Relations. From 2006 to 2012, he served as a special adviser to U.S. Southern Command, the Miami-based Pentagon command with responsibility for South America and the Caribbean — including Cuba. That position gave him access to defense secrets and we should assume that Rocha passed those to the DI too.

The DOJ accuses Rocha of being a witting DI agent for four decades, passing secrets, meeting with Cuban intelligence officers clandestinely, visiting Cuba without State Department authorization, and repeatedly lying to the U.S. government about his secret life in Fidel Castro’s service.

The indictment includes tantalizing hints at Rocha’s double life. Although the DOJ leaves opaque how the FBI got wise to the accused’s treachery, noting only that the bureau received information that Rocha was a Cuban covert agent "prior to November 2022," it highlights four meetings in the months that followed between Rocha and someone whom he believed was a DI officer, but who was in reality an FBI agent working undercover. That agent contacted Rocha on behalf of his "friends in Havana" and the turncoat took the bait. Three Miami meetings followed, during the course of which Rocha admitted his guilt.

He referred to Cubans as "we" and America as "the enemy" while hailing Fidel Castro as "the Comandante." Before the meetings, Rocha employed counter-surveillance techniques to avoid detection, showing his awareness of espionage tradecraft. During the first rendezvous, Rocha told the undercover FBI agent about his four decades of secret work for the DI, whom he referred to as his "comrades" from the Direccion de Inteligencia, to whom he sent his "warmest regards" — all Cuban spy insider lingo. He admitted that he "created the legend of a right-wing person" to keep his DI work under wraps while stating that he hadn’t been in touch with his Cuban handlers since 2016 or 2017 when he last traveled to Havana via Panama on a Dominican passport. All shady spy shenanigans here.

During the second meeting, Rocha reaffirmed his commitment to the DI, stating he was willing to pass to Havana any American secrets he could still get his hands on. He further hailed his secret work for the DI, stating that he worked to "strengthen the Revolution," adding that "What we have done … it’s enormous. … More than a grand slam."

In a third meeting with the FBI agent, Rocha restated his continuing commitment to Havana, even if he came under investigation: "I know how to defend myself," he explained, "I have the intelligence." Rocha arranged for a fourth meeting with the DI on Dec. 8, 2023, but that would not come to pass because he was called in for a chat with State Department Diplomatic Security on Dec. 1, during which he was shown surveillance photos taken during his recent meetings with the undercover FBI agent. Rocha declined to comment. Presumably at that point he knew he was in serious trouble.

If convicted, Rocha will probably spend the rest of his life in federal prison, since he faces grave espionage-related charges. It’s difficult to see how Rocha can beat this rap since the FBI has him on tape admitting his treachery in detail. The big questions now focus on counterintelligence. How many secrets did Rocha pass to Cuba? This is a particularly serious case because Rocha didn’t just have access to U.S. government secrets; he was able to push American policy in Havana’s direction. In the aftermath of Rocha’s arrest, the intelligence community faces one of the most daunting damage assessments in its history, given the length and breadth of Rocha’s apparent treachery.

Worst of all, given the long-standing close ties between Cuban and Russian intelligence, anything important that Rocha passed to the DI should be assumed to have wound up in Moscow.

John R. Schindler served with the National Security Agency as a senior intelligence analyst and counterintelligence officer.