Critics fear Cuban consulate in Tampa would become a ‘spy hotbed’

Critics fear Cuban consulate in Tampa would become a 'spy hotbed'
Published: December 18, 2015Updated: December 19, 2015 at 09:52 AM

TAMPA — As civic leaders from both sides of Tampa Bay jockey to host a
Cuban consulate, a small group of naysayers sees a darker side to the
prospect — one rooted in continuing Cold War tensions and the island
nation's reputation for superior espionage operations.

A consulate "will be Cuba's headquarters for intelligence operations in
Tampa and Florida," says Evelio Otero, a retired Air Force colonel who
served at both U.S. Central Command and U.S. Special Operations Command.
"It will be a spy hotbed."

The focus for Cuban spies would be Centcom and Socom, says Jim
Waurishuk, a retired Air Force colonel who served as deputy director of
intelligence for Centcom.

Otero and Waurishuk belong to a small group called "No to Cuban
Consulate in Tampa," which, as its name indicates, is opposed to having
an outpost of the Castro government in the Tampa area.

Otero, born in Puerto Rico to a Cuban father, was head of Centcom's
coalition intelligence center and chief of intelligence operations
forward in Qatar. His father was the first voice in Telemundo and a
founder of Radio Martí, broadcasting U.S.-funded information to Cuba.

Waurishuk dealt with Cuba during his military career, including a stint
as the senior intelligence officer on the White House National Security
Council staff focusing on the island nation. This marks his first foray
into the contentious world of Cuban-American politics.

They say their "no consulate" group consists of about a dozen people
pushing officials in Tampa and St. Petersburg to reject calls to host
the first Cuban consulate in the U.S. since the nation embraced
Communism more than five decades ago.

Their effort includes lobbying Hillsborough County commissioners to vote
against a resolution supporting a Cuban consulate in Tampa, perhaps Ybor
City — a launching point for Cuban revolutions that ousted the Spanish
and later brought Fidel Castro to power.

The Hillsborough County resolution has yet to come up for a vote.

But the city councils in both Tampa and St. Petersburg already have
adopted resolutions inviting a Cuban consulate to their communities.

President Barack Obama announced publicly one year ago — on Dec. 17,
2014 — that the U.S. is moving to normalize relations between the two
long-time adversaries. This led to the mutual establishment of embassies
in July, sparking questions about the next step in diplomatic relations
— establishing a consulate or consulates to promote business and
individual relations.

Miami and Tampa have two of the largest Cuban-American populations in
the U.S., but anti-Castro sentiment remains so strong in Miami — fueled
by those who suffered from the Castro revolution — that only the Tampa
area has invited Cuba to locate a consulate here.

Those backing the move scoff at the notion a consulate would present any
security risk.

"I am not buying into that argument," says St. Petersburg Mayor Rick
Kriseman, who recently visited Cuba to lobby for a consulate. "It is not
a concern."

Kriseman says it is "my job to promote my community and the federal
government's job to figure out how to maintain security on their sites.
If I follow their logic, we wouldn't have a consulate anywhere in the
state of Florida."

Al Fox, who has worked for normalizing relations with Cuba as founder of
the Tampa-based Alliance For Responsible Cuba Policy Foundation, also
discounts concerns over espionage emanating from a consulate.

"I feel pretty comfortable that our country's intelligence apparatus are
aware of it and on top of it," says Fox, who arranges business
development trips to Cuba and has met Fidel Castro nine times. "This is
just, 'Throw mud up on the wall, and maybe some of it will stick.' "

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Consular centers the world over are indeed hotbeds for spying — ours,
theirs, everyone's.

From consular officers and attaches to administrative personnel, those
assigned to consulates are often given official cover jobs to do the
things spies do, like collect information, meet with assets and try to
flip others.

Otero and Waurishuk are concerned that having a consulate in the Tampa
area will make it easier for the Cubans to keep tabs on what is taking
place at Centcom and Socom by increasing the number of people providing
human intelligence gathering in addition to the signals intelligence
Cuba gathers at the Soviet-era Lourdes center near Havana.

Their concerns are amplified by continuing close relations between Cuba
and Russia, whose predecessor the Soviet Union served as the island
nation's economic lifeblood until the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Russia now is deeply involved in Syria and would be especially
interested in gleaning information from Centcom, which oversees U.S.
military operations in the region.

Foreign intelligence assets in the U.S. are precluded from traveling
beyond 25 miles of their base of operations. A consulate in the Tampa
area, then, increases the ability of Cuban spies to look into MacDill,
Otero and Waurishuk say.

"They can operate freely to recruit agents, recruit other people who
work at MacDill, be it maintenance people or contractors from a plumbing
company," Waurishuk said. "You'll have Cuban officials posing as
suppliers, vendors."

It's happened before, he said.

In 2006, Cuban maids working in the base visitors quarters targeted the
quarters of visiting senior officers, Waurishuk said.

He learned of the infiltration effort, he said, through a monthly
security briefing by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and
Army Criminal Investigation Command while he was deputy director for
intelligence at Centcom.

The attempt was discovered when a general officer visiting Socom came
back to his room and found "Cuban maids going through his personal
effects — briefcase and papers," Waurishuk said.

The officer, whose name he does not recall, reported the incident.
Military investigators "determined in their investigation that maids had
been working for the Cuban government, and were gathering information
about people visiting, finding out where they were from or finding out
why they were at MacDill," Waurishuk said.

Linda Card, a spokeswoman for Air Force Office of Special
Investigations, said she could not comment about the claim, suggesting
the Tribune file a Freedom of Information Act request. Christopher Grey,
a spokesman for Army Criminal Investigation Command, did not comment.

Officials from Centcom, Socom and the 6th Air Mobility Wing, the base
host unit, declined to comment on espionage efforts targeting the base.

❖ ❖ ❖

MacDill was targeted by Cuban spies a decade before the 2006 incident in
one of several known examples of Castro operatives working in the
Sunshine State.

In 1998, Gerardo Hernandez, a captain in the Cuban military
intelligence, led an extensive ring of Cuban nationals and Cuban
Americans collecting intelligence, attempting to commit espionage and
disrupt Cuban exile groups in South Florida from 1992 until 1998,
according to a Pentagon history of espionage targeting U.S. military bases.

On Sept. 12, 1998, the FBI arrested 10 people associated with the "La
Red Avispa," or the Red Wasp Network ring, including eight men and two
women. They were accused of spying on U.S. military installations and
anti-Castro exile groups in south Florida and transmitting this
information to Cuba.

MacDill was among the military installations the group attempted to
infiltrate, along with U.S. Southern Command Headquarters in Miami and
Boca Chica Naval Air Station in Key West.

According to the Pentagon history, "The group's goals included
documenting activities, exercises, and trends at the installations;
monitoring anti-Castro groups and disrupting their plans; and developing
positions of vantage from which to warn Cuban intelligence of impending
military strikes against Cuba."

The case represented a nadir in U.S.-Cuba relations.

Two years before the arrests, Cuban air force jets shot down two of
three Cessna aircraft flying toward Havana. Four pilots, members of the
anti-Castro exile group Brothers to the Rescue, were killed, according
to the Pentagon history.

Several of the Wasp network agents had infiltrated Brothers to the
Rescue, according to the history, including Rene Gonzalez, the pilot.
Gerardo Hernandez, arrested on charges related to information-gathering
and sending "nonpublic" information to a foreign power, also was charged
with contributing to the deaths of the four pilots because he gave Cuban
intelligence information about the group's planned flyover.

Other Cubans eventually indicted in the incident fled to Cuba before
they could be arrested.

Five of the original Wasp defendants who did not enter into plea
bargains were convicted on all counts in 2001, according to the history.
Three received life sentences for conspiracy to commit espionage,
although they did not collect or compromise any classified information.

Cuban nationals Gerardo Hernandez and Ramon Labanino, and Antonio
Guerrero, an American citizen, received life in prison. Cuban nationals
Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez were sentenced to 19 years and 10
years for conspiracy, respectively, and for acting as unregistered
agents of a foreign power.

All were released by the Obama administration as part of a spy swap.

❖ ❖ ❖

There are valid counterintelligence reasons to be concerned about with a
local Cuban consulate, says Lora Griffith, a former senior CIA
operations officer now living in Tampa who has been privy to videos of
Cuban operatives in action.

"The Cubans are really good at spying on us," says Griffith, who once
debriefed a Cuban asset while working as an intelligence analyst for the
agency. "They have been really good against American targets and that is
something that is a concern. Anyone posted here would need to be
watched, because they have a proven track record of collecting against us."

Even America's closest allies collect information, as was the case with
Jonathan Pollard, the former Navy civilian intelligence officer who
spent three decades in prison for spying on behalf of Israel before he
was released Nov. 20.

But Griffith says Cuba raises the bar with its combination of spying
acumen, its interest in helping the Russians and its willingness to sell
what it collects on the open market.

"The Cubans are a particular concern because they were so good at
playing us," says Griffith, who says she can't be more specific because
details remain classified. "Suffice it to say, they were very active and
very successful at collecting and also counterintelligence."

Griffith, who doesn't know Otero or Waurishuk, shares their concerns
that Cuban intelligence operatives would target MacDill.

Counterintelligence personnel at MacDill "should be very proactive" when
it comes to activities at a Cuban consulate, says Griffith, suggesting
that base personnel be shown videos taken of Cuban operatives in action.

"They should be seeing those and know what they look like and what to
watch out for and the kinds of questions that get asked that should
raise a red flag."

Cuban operatives in Tampa, Griffith says, can be expected to recruit
people who work at MacDill or who have access to information they find
valuable.

"They might be doing it through access agents, trying to recruit people
who have access to MacDill, or who don't have access to MacDill, but
know people with access."

While military and intelligence personnel at MacDill should be aware of
security procedures, The need to be wary would extend beyond MacDill to
the community at large, she says.

"If a consulate comes in, at least make people aware of the kinds of
aggressive operations the Cubans have run against the U.S. in the past."

❖ ❖ ❖

Community leaders working to land a Cuban consulate don't see spying as
a concern that should drive the issue.

"That's an absurd statement in my estimation," says City Councilwoman
Yolie Capin, who spearheaded the resolution adopted in April inviting
Cuba to open a consulate in Tampa. "We need to be much more vigilant,
but that shouldn't stop a consulate from coming here."

Hillsborough County Commissioner Victor Crist, whose father Guy served
in U.S. Army Special Forces and later helped train with the Israeli
intelligence service Mossad, concurs.

"Sometimes those things happen, but our government is fully aware of
that potential and generally keep a really close eye on these kinds of
offices," Crist says. "If they are going to spy, they are going to do it
whether they have a consulate or not. I don't think that should be a
reason to avoid a consulate. If the government thinks it is time to open
one, then I would like to see it in Tampa."

That view was echoed by Fox, the advocate for improved relations with
Cuba and a backer of locating a consulate here.

"Let's say Col. Otero is 100 percent correct and the Cuban government
uses an office building on West Shore Boulevard as a way to house a
Cuban intelligence officer," Fox says. "My answer to that is, 'So what?'
We'll know it. We'll follow him or her or a third party."

haltman@tampatrib.com

(813) 259-7629

Twitter: @haltman

Source: Critics fear Cuban consulate in Tampa would become a 'spy
hotbed' | TBO.com and The Tampa Tribune -
http://www.tbo.com/list/military-news/cuban-consulate-in-tampa-sparks-fear-20151218/