Ana Belen Montes : The chronicle of an
American Spy for the Cuban Government. The most important and dangerous spy
in the last 45 years
By Manuel Cereijo
Brief Conclusion:
It was so easy for the Cuban Intelligence Service to plant Ana Belen Montes inside the DIA, that we must assume that the Cuban Intelligence Service has done it again and again, in all agencies. The Cuban government has the capability to penetrate the U.S. government. Ana Belen Montes exercised influence like few spies in U.S. history before her. She had the power to shape perceptions and to influence policy.When members of Congress queried the U.S. Intelligence community about an issue related to Cuba, Miss. Montes authored DIA’s response. On those occasions when the Joint Chiefs of Staff provided testimony to Congress on issues related to cuba, Miss Montes drafted their remarks.
DO WE NEED ANOTHER SMOKING GUN?
Introduction
On 21 September 2001, the FBI arrested Ana Belen Montes, a US citizen born 28 February 1957, on a US military installation in Nurnberg, Germany. She was charged with spying for Cuban intelligence for the past five years.
ANA BELEN MONTES
Montes graduated with a major in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia in 1979 and obtained a Masters Degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1988. She is single and lived alone at 3039 Macomb Street, NW, apartment 20, Washington, DC. Until her arrest, Montes was employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a senior intelligence analyst. She began her employment with DIA in September 1985 and since 1992 has specialized in Cuba matters. She worked at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC. Prior to joining DIA, Montes worked at the Department of Justice. In 1993, she traveled to Cuba to study the Cuban military on a CIA-paid study for the Center for the Study of Intelligence.
Communication from the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) to Montes via Shortwave Radio
During a court-authorized surreptitious entry into Montes’s residence, conducted by the FBI on 25 May 2001, FBI agents observed a Toshiba laptop computer.1 During the search, the agents electronically copied the laptop’s hard drive. During subsequent analysis of the copied hard drive, the FBI recovered substantial text that had been deleted.
The recovered text from the laptop’s hard drive included significant portions of a Spanish- language message, which when printed out with standard font comes to approximately 11 pages of text. The recovered portion of the message does not expressly indicate when it was composed. However, it instructs the message recipient to travel to “the Friendship Heights station” on “Saturday, November 23rd.”
Although no date was on the message, November 23 fell on a Saturday in 1996. The FBI determined that this message was composed sometime before 23 November 1996 and entered onto Montes’s laptop sometime after 5 October 1996, the date she purchased it. On the basis of its content, the message is from a CuIS officer to Montes.2 Portions of the recovered message included the following: “You should go to the WIPE program and destroy that file according to the steps which we discussed during the contact. This is a basic step to take every time you receive a radio message or some disk.”
During this same search, the agents also observed a Sony shortwave radio stored in a previously opened box on the floor of the bedroom. The agents turned on the radio to confirm that it was operable. Also found was an earpiece3 that could be utilized with this shortwave radio, allowing the radio to be listened to more privately.
The recovered portion of the message begins with the following passage:
Nevertheless, I learned that you entered the code communicating that you were having problems with radio reception. The code alone covers a lot, meaning that we do not know specifically what types of difficulty you are having. Given that it’s only been a few days since we began the use of new systems, let’s not rule out that the problem might be related to them. In that case, I’m going to repeat the necessary steps to take in order to retrieve a message.
The message then describes how the person reading the message should “write the information you send to us and the numbers of the radio messages which you receive.” The message later refers to going “to a new line when you get to the group 10 of the numbers that you receive via radio,” and still later gives as an “example” a series of groups of numbers: “22333 44444 77645 77647 90909 13425 76490 78399 7865498534.” After some further instruction, the message states: “Here the program deciphers the message and it retrieves the text onto the screen, asking you if the text is okay or not.” Near the conclusion of the message, there is the statement, “In this shipment you will receive the following disks: . . . 2) Disks ‘R1’ to decipher our mailings and radio.”
Further FBI analysis of Montes’s copied Toshiba hard drive identified text consisting of a series of 150 five-number groups. The text begins, “30107 24624” and continues until 150 such groups are listed. The FBI determined that the precise same numbers—in the precise same order—were broadcast on 6 February 1999 at AM frequency 7887 kHz, by a woman speaking Spanish, who introduced the broadcast with the words “Attencion! Attencion!” The frequency used in that February 1999 broadcast is within the frequency range of the shortwave radio observed in Montes’s residence on 25 May 2001.
Communication between the CuIS and Montes via Computer Diskette4
Montes communicated with her CuIS handling officer by passing and receiving computer diskettes containing encrypted messages. The message described above that was contained on the hard drive of Montes’s laptop computer contained the following passage:
Continue writing along the same lines you have so far, but cipher the information every time you do, so that you do not leave prepared information that is not ciphered in the house. This is the most sensitive and compromising information that you hold. We realize that this entails the difficulty of not being able to revise or consult what was written previously before each shipment, but we think it is worth taking this provisional measure. It is not a problem for us if some intelligence element comes repeated or with another defect which obviously cannot help, we understand this perfectly—Give “E” only the ciphered disks. Do not give, for the time being, printed or photographed material. Keep the materials which you can justify keeping until we agree that you can deliver them.—Keep up the measure of formatting the disks we send you with couriers or letters as soon as possible, leaving conventional notes as reminders only of those things to reply to or report.
The message goes on to refer to a “shipment” that contains “Disk ‘S1’—to cipher the information you send,” and, as indicated in the previous section, to “Disk ‘R1’ to decipher our mailings and radio.” Earlier in the message, there is a reference to “information you receive either via radio or disk.”
During the court-authorized search of the residence on 25 May 2001, two boxes containing a total of 16 diskettes were observed. During a subsequent search on 8 August 2001, a box containing 41 diskettes, later determined to be blank, were observed. Finally, records obtained from a Radio Shack store located near Montes’s residence indicated that Montes purchased 160 floppy diskettes during the period 1 May 1993 to 2 November 1997.
Communication from Montes to the CuIS by Pager5
On the basis of the evidence, Montes communicated with her handling CuIS officer using a pager. In the same message copied from Montes’s hard drive, there is a passage that states:
Beepers that you have. The only beepers in use at present are the following: 1) (917) [first seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application], use it with identification code 635. 2) (917) [second seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application]. Use it with identification code 937. 3) (917) [third seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application] Use it only with identification code 2900 . . . because this beeper is public, in other words it is known to belong to the Cuban Mission at the UN and we assume there is some control over it. You may use this beeper only in the event you cannot communicate with those mentioned in 1) and 2), which are secure.
The reference to “control over it” in the above passage refers to the CuIS officer’s suspicion that the FBI is aware that this beeper number is associated with the Cuban Government and is monitoring it in some fashion.
In addition, the message on the laptop’s hard drive includes a portion stating that the message recipient “entered the code communicating that you were having problems with radio reception.” This portion of the message indicates that Montes at some point shortly prior to receiving the message sent a page to her CuIS officer handler consisting of a preassigned series of numbers to indicate she was having communication problems.
Montes’s Transmission of Classified Information to the CuIS
The same message described above, as well as other messages recovered from the laptop’s hard drive, contained the following information indicating that Montes had been tasked to provide and did provide classified information to the CuIS. In one portion of the message discussed above, the CuIS officer states:
What ***6 said during the meeting . . . was very interesting. Surely you remember well his plans and expectations when he was coming here. If I remember right, on that occasion, we told you how tremendously useful the information you gave us from the meetings with him resulted, and how we were waiting here for him with open arms.
The very next section in the message states:
We think the opportunity you will have to participate in the ACOM exercise in December is very good. Practically, everything that takes place there will be of intelligence value. Let’s see if it deals with contingency plans and specific targets in Cuba, which are to prioritized interests for us.
The “ACOM exercise in December” is a reference to a war games exercise in December 1996 conducted by the US Atlantic Command—a US Department of Defense unified command, in Norfolk, Virginia. Details about the exercise’s “contingency plans and specific targets” is classified Secret and relates to the national defense of the United States. DIA advised that Montes attended the above exercise in Norfolk as part of her official DIA duties.
A separate message partially recovered from the hard drive of Montes’s Toshiba laptop revealed details about a particular Special Access Program (SAP) related to the national defense of the United States:
In addition, just today the agency made me enter into a program, “special access top secret. [First name and last name omitted from this application] and I are the only ones in my office who know about the program.” [The details related about this SAP in this message are classified “Top Secret” / SCI.]
DIA has confirmed that Montes and a colleague with the same name as that related in the portion of the message described above were briefed into this SAP on 15 May 1997.
In yet another message recovered from the laptop, there is a statement revealing that “we have noticed” the location, number, and type of certain Cuban military weapons in Cuba. This information is precisely the type of information that was within Montes’s area of expertise and was, in fact, an accurate statement of the US Intelligence Community’s knowledge on this particular issue. The information is classified Secret.
FBI Physical Surveillance of Montes and Telephone Records for May to September
The FBI maintained periodic physical surveillance of Montes during the period May to September 2001. On 20 May 2001, Montes left her residence and drove to the Hecht’s on Wisconsin Avenue, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She entered the store at 1:07 p.m. and exited by the rear entrance at 1:27 p.m. She then sat down on a stonewall outside the rear entrance and waited for approximately two minutes. At 1:30 p.m., the FBI observed her walk to a pay phone approximately 20 feet from where she was sitting. She placed a one-minute call to a pager number using a prepaid calling card. At 1:45 p.m., she drove out of the Hecht’s lot and headed north on Wisconsin Avenue toward Bethesda, Maryland. At 1:52 p.m., she parked her car in a lot and went into Modell’s Sporting Goods store. She quickly exited the store carrying a bag and crossed Wisconsin Avenue to an Exxon station. She was observed looking over her right and left shoulders as she crossed the Exxon lot. At 2:00 p.m., she placed a one-minute call from a pay phone at the Exxon station to the same pager number using the same prepaid calling card. By 2:08 p.m., Montes had walked back to her vehicle and was driving back to her residence where she arrived at 2:30 p.m.
On 3 June 2001, Montes engaged in similar communications activity. She left her residence at approximately 2:30 p.m. and drove to a bank parking lot at the corner of Harrison Street, NW and Wisconsin Avenue, NW. She exited her car at approximately 2:37 p.m. and entered a Borders books store on Wisconsin Avenue. She left the store approximately 40 minutes later. She then crossed Wisconsin Avenue to the vicinity of three public pay phones near the southern exit of the Friendship Heights Metro Station. At 3:28 p.m., she placed a one-minute call using the same prepaid calling card to the same pager number she had called on 20 May 2001. After a few minutes, she walked back to her car and drove to a grocery store.
Pursuant to court authorization, on 16 August 2001, the FBI searched Montes’s pocketbook. In a separate compartment of Montes’s wallet, the FBI found the prepaid calling card used to place the calls on 20 May 2001 and 3 June 2001. In the same small compartment, the FBI located a slip of paper on which was written the pager number she had called. Written above this pager number was a set of digits, which comprised one or more codes for Montes to use after calling the pager number; for example, after contacting the pager, she keys in a code to be sent to the pager which communicates a particular pre-established message.
On 26 August 2001, at approximately 10:00 a.m., the FBI observed Montes making a brief pay telephone call to the same pager number from a gas station/convenience store located at the intersection of Connecticut and Nebraska Avenues, NW in Washington, DC.
On September 14, 2001, Montes left work and drove directly to her residence. She then walked to Connecticut Avenue, NW, in Washington, D.C., still wearing her business clothes, and made a stop at a dry cleaning shop. She then entered the National Zoo through the Connecticut Avenue entrance. She proceeded to the “Prairie Land” overlook where she stayed for only 30 seconds. She then walked further into the zoo compound and basically retraced her route out of the zoo. At approximately 6:30 p.m., Montes removed a small piece of paper or card from her wallet and walked to a public phone booth located just outside the pedestrian entrance to the zoo. Montes then made what telephone records confirmed to be two calls to the same pager number she had called in May, June, and August, as described above. The records reflect that the first call was unsuccessful—the call lasted zero seconds. According to the records, she made a second call one minute later that lasted 33 seconds. Shortly after making these calls, Montes looked at her watch and then proceeded to walk back to her residence.
On 15 September 2001, telephone records pertaining to the prepaid calling card number on the card observed in her pocketbook on 16 August 2001 showed that Montes made a call to the same pager number at 11:12 a.m. that lasted one minute.
The next day—16 September—Montes left her residence in the early afternoon and took the Metro (Red Line) to the Van Ness-UDC station in Washington, DC. She made a brief telephone call from a payphone in the Metro station at approximately 1:50 p.m., again to the same pager number.
Montes owned a cell phone, which was observed during a court-authorized search of her tote bag on 16 August 2001. In addition, during surveillance on 16 September 2001, Montes was observed speaking on a cell phone. Furthermore, telephone records obtained in May 2001 confirm that she has subscribed to cell telephone service continually from 26 October 1996 to 14 May 2001. Montes’s use of public pay phones notwithstanding her access to a cell phone supports the conclusion that the pay phone calls were in furtherance of Montes’s espionage.
On 19 March 2002, Montes pleaded guilty to espionage in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, and admitted that, for 16 years, she had passed top secret information to Cuban intelligence. She used shortwave radios, encrypted transmissions, and a pay telephone to contact Cuban intelligence officials and provide them the names of four US intelligence officers working in Cuba. She also informed Cuban intelligence about a US “special access program” and revealed that the US Government had uncovered the location of various Cuban military installations.
Both her defense attorney and federal prosecutors said that Montes was motivated by her moral outrage at US policy toward Cuba—an impoverished island country—and not by money. She received only “nominal” expenses for her activities.
Although Montes could receive the death penalty for her crime, the plea agreement calls for a 25year prison term if she cooperates with the FBI and other investigators by providing all the details she knows about Cuban intelligence activities. Judge Ricardo M. Urbina set a sentencing date of September 2002.
Endnotes
1 A receipt obtained from a CompUSA store located in Alexandria, Virginia, indicated that, on 5 October 1996, one “Ana B. Montes” purchased a refurbished Toshiba laptop computer, model 405CS, serial number 10568512. The Toshiba laptop in her apartment had the same serial number on it as the one she purchased.
2 The CuIS often communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method, the CuIS broadcasts a series of numbers on a particular frequency. The clandestine agent, monitoring the message on a shortwave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into Spanish- language text. This was the methodology employed by some of the defendants convicted last June in the Southern District of Florida of espionage on behalf of Cuba and acting as unregistered agents of Cuba, in the case of United States of America v. Gerardo Hernandez, et al. (See Cuban Spies in Miami). Although it is very difficult to decrypt a message without access to the relevant decryption program, once decrypted on the agent’s computer the decrypted message resides on the computer’s hard drive unless the agent takes careful steps to cleanse the hard drive of the message. Simply “deleting” the file is not sufficient.
3 Similar earpieces were found in the residences of the defendants in the Hernandez case.
4 On the basis of knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, a clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by typing a message onto a computer and then encrypting and saving it to a diskette. The agent, thereafter, physically delivers the diskette, either directly or indirectly, to the officer. In addition, as an alternative to sending an encrypted shortwave radio broadcast, a CuIS officer often will similarly place an encrypted message onto a diskette and again simply physically deliver the diskette, clandestinely, to the agent. Upon receipt of the encrypted message, either by the CuIS officer or the agent, the recipient employs a decryption program contained on a separate diskette to decrypt the message. The exchange of diskettes containing encrypted messages, and the use of decryption programs contained on separate diskettes, was one of the clandestine communication techniques utilized by the defendants in the Hernandez case. Although it is difficult to decrypt a message without the decryption program, the very process of encrypting or decrypting a message on a computer causes a decrypted copy of the message to be placed on the computer’s hard drive. Unless affirmative steps are taken to cleanse the hard drive—beyond simply “deleting” the message—the message can be retrieved from the hard drive.
5 On the basis of knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, a clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by making calls to a pager number from a pay telephone booth and entering a preassigned code to convey a particular message. The defendants in the Hernandez case also utilized this methodology.
6 The FBI replaced in this application with “***” a word that begins with a capital letter, which was not translated, and is, in fact, the true last name of a US intelligence officer who was present in an undercover capacity, in Cuba, during a period that began prior to October 1996. The above quoted portion of the message indicates that Montes disclosed the US officer’s intelligence agency affiliation and anticipated presence in Cuba to the CuIS, which information is classified “Secret.” As a result, the Cuban Government was able to direct its counterintelligence resources against the US officer (“we were waiting here for him with open arms”).
Ana Belen Montes’ residence was a cooperative apartment located at 3039 Macomb St, N.W., apartment 20, Washington, D.C. Room C6-146A, 200 MacDill Boulevard, Washington, DC was the office/work space assigned to Ana Belen Montes, at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, located on Bolling Air Force Base.
She is a United States citizen, born on February 28, 1957, on a U.S. military installation in Nurnberg, Germany. Montes graduated from the University of Virginia, 1979 and obtained a masters degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, 1988.
She was employed at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a senior intelligence analyst, since September 1985. Since 1992, she was specialized in Cuba matters. Montes was the senior analyst responsible for matters pertaining Cuba. Montes had direct and authorized access to classified information relating to the national defense.
The Cuban Intelligence Service ( CuIS) communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method, the CuIS broadcasts on a particular frequency a series of numbers. The clandestine agent, monitoring the message on a short wave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into Spanish-language text. Typical messages consists of a series of 150 5-numbers groups, like “30107 24624”.
This was the methodology employed by some of the spies convicted, in the Southern District of Florida, of espionage on behalf of Cuba. Montes was a clandestine CuIS agent who communicated with her handling CuIS officer in the manner described above. Montes had a Toshiba laptop computer, model 405CS to that effect.
Montes also had a Sony shortwave radio stored in a box in her apartment. She had an earpiece that could be utilized with this shortwave radio, allowing the radio to be listened to more privately. Similar earpieces were found in the residences of the Cuban spies in Miami.
CuIS agents also communicate with her or his handling CuIS officer by making calls to a pager number from a pay telephone booth and entering a pre-assigned code to convey a particular message. This methodology was utilized by Ana Belen Montes as well as by the spies convicted in South Florida.
Espionage paraphernalia, including devices designed to conceal and transmit national defense and classified intelligence information and material, and implements used by espionage agents to communicate with their handlers and with a foreign government, to wit: white tape, mailing tape, colored chalk ( all used for signaling purposes), coded pads, secret writing paper, microdots, any letters, notes or other written communications ( including contact instructions) between Montes and any agents of the CuIS or other intelligence service of Cuba; any computers, computer disks, cameras, films, codes, telephone numbers, maps, photographs and other materials relating to communication procedures.
APPENDIX
By Manuel Cereijo
Brief Conclusion:
It was so easy for the Cuban Intelligence Service to plant Ana Belen Montes inside the DIA, that we must assume that the Cuban Intelligence Service has done it again and again, in all agencies. The Cuban government has the capability to penetrate the U.S. government. Ana Belen Montes exercised influence like few spies in U.S. history before her. She had the power to shape perceptions and to influence policy.When members of Congress queried the U.S. Intelligence community about an issue related to Cuba, Miss. Montes authored DIA’s response. On those occasions when the Joint Chiefs of Staff provided testimony to Congress on issues related to cuba, Miss Montes drafted their remarks.
DO WE NEED ANOTHER SMOKING GUN?
Introduction
On 21 September 2001, the FBI arrested Ana Belen Montes, a US citizen born 28 February 1957, on a US military installation in Nurnberg, Germany. She was charged with spying for Cuban intelligence for the past five years.
ANA BELEN MONTES
Montes graduated with a major in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia in 1979 and obtained a Masters Degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in 1988. She is single and lived alone at 3039 Macomb Street, NW, apartment 20, Washington, DC. Until her arrest, Montes was employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a senior intelligence analyst. She began her employment with DIA in September 1985 and since 1992 has specialized in Cuba matters. She worked at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC. Prior to joining DIA, Montes worked at the Department of Justice. In 1993, she traveled to Cuba to study the Cuban military on a CIA-paid study for the Center for the Study of Intelligence.
Communication from the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) to Montes via Shortwave Radio
During a court-authorized surreptitious entry into Montes’s residence, conducted by the FBI on 25 May 2001, FBI agents observed a Toshiba laptop computer.1 During the search, the agents electronically copied the laptop’s hard drive. During subsequent analysis of the copied hard drive, the FBI recovered substantial text that had been deleted.
The recovered text from the laptop’s hard drive included significant portions of a Spanish- language message, which when printed out with standard font comes to approximately 11 pages of text. The recovered portion of the message does not expressly indicate when it was composed. However, it instructs the message recipient to travel to “the Friendship Heights station” on “Saturday, November 23rd.”
Although no date was on the message, November 23 fell on a Saturday in 1996. The FBI determined that this message was composed sometime before 23 November 1996 and entered onto Montes’s laptop sometime after 5 October 1996, the date she purchased it. On the basis of its content, the message is from a CuIS officer to Montes.2 Portions of the recovered message included the following: “You should go to the WIPE program and destroy that file according to the steps which we discussed during the contact. This is a basic step to take every time you receive a radio message or some disk.”
During this same search, the agents also observed a Sony shortwave radio stored in a previously opened box on the floor of the bedroom. The agents turned on the radio to confirm that it was operable. Also found was an earpiece3 that could be utilized with this shortwave radio, allowing the radio to be listened to more privately.
The recovered portion of the message begins with the following passage:
Nevertheless, I learned that you entered the code communicating that you were having problems with radio reception. The code alone covers a lot, meaning that we do not know specifically what types of difficulty you are having. Given that it’s only been a few days since we began the use of new systems, let’s not rule out that the problem might be related to them. In that case, I’m going to repeat the necessary steps to take in order to retrieve a message.
The message then describes how the person reading the message should “write the information you send to us and the numbers of the radio messages which you receive.” The message later refers to going “to a new line when you get to the group 10 of the numbers that you receive via radio,” and still later gives as an “example” a series of groups of numbers: “22333 44444 77645 77647 90909 13425 76490 78399 7865498534.” After some further instruction, the message states: “Here the program deciphers the message and it retrieves the text onto the screen, asking you if the text is okay or not.” Near the conclusion of the message, there is the statement, “In this shipment you will receive the following disks: . . . 2) Disks ‘R1’ to decipher our mailings and radio.”
Further FBI analysis of Montes’s copied Toshiba hard drive identified text consisting of a series of 150 five-number groups. The text begins, “30107 24624” and continues until 150 such groups are listed. The FBI determined that the precise same numbers—in the precise same order—were broadcast on 6 February 1999 at AM frequency 7887 kHz, by a woman speaking Spanish, who introduced the broadcast with the words “Attencion! Attencion!” The frequency used in that February 1999 broadcast is within the frequency range of the shortwave radio observed in Montes’s residence on 25 May 2001.
Communication between the CuIS and Montes via Computer Diskette4
Montes communicated with her CuIS handling officer by passing and receiving computer diskettes containing encrypted messages. The message described above that was contained on the hard drive of Montes’s laptop computer contained the following passage:
Continue writing along the same lines you have so far, but cipher the information every time you do, so that you do not leave prepared information that is not ciphered in the house. This is the most sensitive and compromising information that you hold. We realize that this entails the difficulty of not being able to revise or consult what was written previously before each shipment, but we think it is worth taking this provisional measure. It is not a problem for us if some intelligence element comes repeated or with another defect which obviously cannot help, we understand this perfectly—Give “E” only the ciphered disks. Do not give, for the time being, printed or photographed material. Keep the materials which you can justify keeping until we agree that you can deliver them.—Keep up the measure of formatting the disks we send you with couriers or letters as soon as possible, leaving conventional notes as reminders only of those things to reply to or report.
The message goes on to refer to a “shipment” that contains “Disk ‘S1’—to cipher the information you send,” and, as indicated in the previous section, to “Disk ‘R1’ to decipher our mailings and radio.” Earlier in the message, there is a reference to “information you receive either via radio or disk.”
During the court-authorized search of the residence on 25 May 2001, two boxes containing a total of 16 diskettes were observed. During a subsequent search on 8 August 2001, a box containing 41 diskettes, later determined to be blank, were observed. Finally, records obtained from a Radio Shack store located near Montes’s residence indicated that Montes purchased 160 floppy diskettes during the period 1 May 1993 to 2 November 1997.
Communication from Montes to the CuIS by Pager5
On the basis of the evidence, Montes communicated with her handling CuIS officer using a pager. In the same message copied from Montes’s hard drive, there is a passage that states:
Beepers that you have. The only beepers in use at present are the following: 1) (917) [first seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application], use it with identification code 635. 2) (917) [second seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application]. Use it with identification code 937. 3) (917) [third seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application] Use it only with identification code 2900 . . . because this beeper is public, in other words it is known to belong to the Cuban Mission at the UN and we assume there is some control over it. You may use this beeper only in the event you cannot communicate with those mentioned in 1) and 2), which are secure.
The reference to “control over it” in the above passage refers to the CuIS officer’s suspicion that the FBI is aware that this beeper number is associated with the Cuban Government and is monitoring it in some fashion.
In addition, the message on the laptop’s hard drive includes a portion stating that the message recipient “entered the code communicating that you were having problems with radio reception.” This portion of the message indicates that Montes at some point shortly prior to receiving the message sent a page to her CuIS officer handler consisting of a preassigned series of numbers to indicate she was having communication problems.
Montes’s Transmission of Classified Information to the CuIS
The same message described above, as well as other messages recovered from the laptop’s hard drive, contained the following information indicating that Montes had been tasked to provide and did provide classified information to the CuIS. In one portion of the message discussed above, the CuIS officer states:
What ***6 said during the meeting . . . was very interesting. Surely you remember well his plans and expectations when he was coming here. If I remember right, on that occasion, we told you how tremendously useful the information you gave us from the meetings with him resulted, and how we were waiting here for him with open arms.
The very next section in the message states:
We think the opportunity you will have to participate in the ACOM exercise in December is very good. Practically, everything that takes place there will be of intelligence value. Let’s see if it deals with contingency plans and specific targets in Cuba, which are to prioritized interests for us.
The “ACOM exercise in December” is a reference to a war games exercise in December 1996 conducted by the US Atlantic Command—a US Department of Defense unified command, in Norfolk, Virginia. Details about the exercise’s “contingency plans and specific targets” is classified Secret and relates to the national defense of the United States. DIA advised that Montes attended the above exercise in Norfolk as part of her official DIA duties.
A separate message partially recovered from the hard drive of Montes’s Toshiba laptop revealed details about a particular Special Access Program (SAP) related to the national defense of the United States:
In addition, just today the agency made me enter into a program, “special access top secret. [First name and last name omitted from this application] and I are the only ones in my office who know about the program.” [The details related about this SAP in this message are classified “Top Secret” / SCI.]
DIA has confirmed that Montes and a colleague with the same name as that related in the portion of the message described above were briefed into this SAP on 15 May 1997.
In yet another message recovered from the laptop, there is a statement revealing that “we have noticed” the location, number, and type of certain Cuban military weapons in Cuba. This information is precisely the type of information that was within Montes’s area of expertise and was, in fact, an accurate statement of the US Intelligence Community’s knowledge on this particular issue. The information is classified Secret.
FBI Physical Surveillance of Montes and Telephone Records for May to September
The FBI maintained periodic physical surveillance of Montes during the period May to September 2001. On 20 May 2001, Montes left her residence and drove to the Hecht’s on Wisconsin Avenue, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She entered the store at 1:07 p.m. and exited by the rear entrance at 1:27 p.m. She then sat down on a stonewall outside the rear entrance and waited for approximately two minutes. At 1:30 p.m., the FBI observed her walk to a pay phone approximately 20 feet from where she was sitting. She placed a one-minute call to a pager number using a prepaid calling card. At 1:45 p.m., she drove out of the Hecht’s lot and headed north on Wisconsin Avenue toward Bethesda, Maryland. At 1:52 p.m., she parked her car in a lot and went into Modell’s Sporting Goods store. She quickly exited the store carrying a bag and crossed Wisconsin Avenue to an Exxon station. She was observed looking over her right and left shoulders as she crossed the Exxon lot. At 2:00 p.m., she placed a one-minute call from a pay phone at the Exxon station to the same pager number using the same prepaid calling card. By 2:08 p.m., Montes had walked back to her vehicle and was driving back to her residence where she arrived at 2:30 p.m.
On 3 June 2001, Montes engaged in similar communications activity. She left her residence at approximately 2:30 p.m. and drove to a bank parking lot at the corner of Harrison Street, NW and Wisconsin Avenue, NW. She exited her car at approximately 2:37 p.m. and entered a Borders books store on Wisconsin Avenue. She left the store approximately 40 minutes later. She then crossed Wisconsin Avenue to the vicinity of three public pay phones near the southern exit of the Friendship Heights Metro Station. At 3:28 p.m., she placed a one-minute call using the same prepaid calling card to the same pager number she had called on 20 May 2001. After a few minutes, she walked back to her car and drove to a grocery store.
Pursuant to court authorization, on 16 August 2001, the FBI searched Montes’s pocketbook. In a separate compartment of Montes’s wallet, the FBI found the prepaid calling card used to place the calls on 20 May 2001 and 3 June 2001. In the same small compartment, the FBI located a slip of paper on which was written the pager number she had called. Written above this pager number was a set of digits, which comprised one or more codes for Montes to use after calling the pager number; for example, after contacting the pager, she keys in a code to be sent to the pager which communicates a particular pre-established message.
On 26 August 2001, at approximately 10:00 a.m., the FBI observed Montes making a brief pay telephone call to the same pager number from a gas station/convenience store located at the intersection of Connecticut and Nebraska Avenues, NW in Washington, DC.
On September 14, 2001, Montes left work and drove directly to her residence. She then walked to Connecticut Avenue, NW, in Washington, D.C., still wearing her business clothes, and made a stop at a dry cleaning shop. She then entered the National Zoo through the Connecticut Avenue entrance. She proceeded to the “Prairie Land” overlook where she stayed for only 30 seconds. She then walked further into the zoo compound and basically retraced her route out of the zoo. At approximately 6:30 p.m., Montes removed a small piece of paper or card from her wallet and walked to a public phone booth located just outside the pedestrian entrance to the zoo. Montes then made what telephone records confirmed to be two calls to the same pager number she had called in May, June, and August, as described above. The records reflect that the first call was unsuccessful—the call lasted zero seconds. According to the records, she made a second call one minute later that lasted 33 seconds. Shortly after making these calls, Montes looked at her watch and then proceeded to walk back to her residence.
On 15 September 2001, telephone records pertaining to the prepaid calling card number on the card observed in her pocketbook on 16 August 2001 showed that Montes made a call to the same pager number at 11:12 a.m. that lasted one minute.
The next day—16 September—Montes left her residence in the early afternoon and took the Metro (Red Line) to the Van Ness-UDC station in Washington, DC. She made a brief telephone call from a payphone in the Metro station at approximately 1:50 p.m., again to the same pager number.
Montes owned a cell phone, which was observed during a court-authorized search of her tote bag on 16 August 2001. In addition, during surveillance on 16 September 2001, Montes was observed speaking on a cell phone. Furthermore, telephone records obtained in May 2001 confirm that she has subscribed to cell telephone service continually from 26 October 1996 to 14 May 2001. Montes’s use of public pay phones notwithstanding her access to a cell phone supports the conclusion that the pay phone calls were in furtherance of Montes’s espionage.
On 19 March 2002, Montes pleaded guilty to espionage in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC, and admitted that, for 16 years, she had passed top secret information to Cuban intelligence. She used shortwave radios, encrypted transmissions, and a pay telephone to contact Cuban intelligence officials and provide them the names of four US intelligence officers working in Cuba. She also informed Cuban intelligence about a US “special access program” and revealed that the US Government had uncovered the location of various Cuban military installations.
Both her defense attorney and federal prosecutors said that Montes was motivated by her moral outrage at US policy toward Cuba—an impoverished island country—and not by money. She received only “nominal” expenses for her activities.
Although Montes could receive the death penalty for her crime, the plea agreement calls for a 25year prison term if she cooperates with the FBI and other investigators by providing all the details she knows about Cuban intelligence activities. Judge Ricardo M. Urbina set a sentencing date of September 2002.
Endnotes
1 A receipt obtained from a CompUSA store located in Alexandria, Virginia, indicated that, on 5 October 1996, one “Ana B. Montes” purchased a refurbished Toshiba laptop computer, model 405CS, serial number 10568512. The Toshiba laptop in her apartment had the same serial number on it as the one she purchased.
2 The CuIS often communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method, the CuIS broadcasts a series of numbers on a particular frequency. The clandestine agent, monitoring the message on a shortwave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into Spanish- language text. This was the methodology employed by some of the defendants convicted last June in the Southern District of Florida of espionage on behalf of Cuba and acting as unregistered agents of Cuba, in the case of United States of America v. Gerardo Hernandez, et al. (See Cuban Spies in Miami). Although it is very difficult to decrypt a message without access to the relevant decryption program, once decrypted on the agent’s computer the decrypted message resides on the computer’s hard drive unless the agent takes careful steps to cleanse the hard drive of the message. Simply “deleting” the file is not sufficient.
3 Similar earpieces were found in the residences of the defendants in the Hernandez case.
4 On the basis of knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, a clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by typing a message onto a computer and then encrypting and saving it to a diskette. The agent, thereafter, physically delivers the diskette, either directly or indirectly, to the officer. In addition, as an alternative to sending an encrypted shortwave radio broadcast, a CuIS officer often will similarly place an encrypted message onto a diskette and again simply physically deliver the diskette, clandestinely, to the agent. Upon receipt of the encrypted message, either by the CuIS officer or the agent, the recipient employs a decryption program contained on a separate diskette to decrypt the message. The exchange of diskettes containing encrypted messages, and the use of decryption programs contained on separate diskettes, was one of the clandestine communication techniques utilized by the defendants in the Hernandez case. Although it is difficult to decrypt a message without the decryption program, the very process of encrypting or decrypting a message on a computer causes a decrypted copy of the message to be placed on the computer’s hard drive. Unless affirmative steps are taken to cleanse the hard drive—beyond simply “deleting” the message—the message can be retrieved from the hard drive.
5 On the basis of knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, a clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by making calls to a pager number from a pay telephone booth and entering a preassigned code to convey a particular message. The defendants in the Hernandez case also utilized this methodology.
6 The FBI replaced in this application with “***” a word that begins with a capital letter, which was not translated, and is, in fact, the true last name of a US intelligence officer who was present in an undercover capacity, in Cuba, during a period that began prior to October 1996. The above quoted portion of the message indicates that Montes disclosed the US officer’s intelligence agency affiliation and anticipated presence in Cuba to the CuIS, which information is classified “Secret.” As a result, the Cuban Government was able to direct its counterintelligence resources against the US officer (“we were waiting here for him with open arms”).
Ana Belen Montes’ residence was a cooperative apartment located at 3039 Macomb St, N.W., apartment 20, Washington, D.C. Room C6-146A, 200 MacDill Boulevard, Washington, DC was the office/work space assigned to Ana Belen Montes, at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, located on Bolling Air Force Base.
She is a United States citizen, born on February 28, 1957, on a U.S. military installation in Nurnberg, Germany. Montes graduated from the University of Virginia, 1979 and obtained a masters degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, 1988.
She was employed at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a senior intelligence analyst, since September 1985. Since 1992, she was specialized in Cuba matters. Montes was the senior analyst responsible for matters pertaining Cuba. Montes had direct and authorized access to classified information relating to the national defense.
The Cuban Intelligence Service ( CuIS) communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method, the CuIS broadcasts on a particular frequency a series of numbers. The clandestine agent, monitoring the message on a short wave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into Spanish-language text. Typical messages consists of a series of 150 5-numbers groups, like “30107 24624”.
This was the methodology employed by some of the spies convicted, in the Southern District of Florida, of espionage on behalf of Cuba. Montes was a clandestine CuIS agent who communicated with her handling CuIS officer in the manner described above. Montes had a Toshiba laptop computer, model 405CS to that effect.
Montes also had a Sony shortwave radio stored in a box in her apartment. She had an earpiece that could be utilized with this shortwave radio, allowing the radio to be listened to more privately. Similar earpieces were found in the residences of the Cuban spies in Miami.
CuIS agents also communicate with her or his handling CuIS officer by making calls to a pager number from a pay telephone booth and entering a pre-assigned code to convey a particular message. This methodology was utilized by Ana Belen Montes as well as by the spies convicted in South Florida.
Espionage paraphernalia, including devices designed to conceal and transmit national defense and classified intelligence information and material, and implements used by espionage agents to communicate with their handlers and with a foreign government, to wit: white tape, mailing tape, colored chalk ( all used for signaling purposes), coded pads, secret writing paper, microdots, any letters, notes or other written communications ( including contact instructions) between Montes and any agents of the CuIS or other intelligence service of Cuba; any computers, computer disks, cameras, films, codes, telephone numbers, maps, photographs and other materials relating to communication procedures.
APPENDIX
EXCERPTS FROM A TAPED BRIEFING WITH
ANA BELEN MONTES. THE TWO PARTICIPATING REPORTERS I HAVE NAMED XXX,
YYY.
BRIEFING WITH
DEPT. OF INTELLIGENCE
DATE: JUNE 4, 1997
Maybe for the tape we could just review that I am Colonel JJJfrom the Department of Intelligence’s (DI) public Affairs Office. We are here to do a background interview generally speaking on the topic of Cuba. It’s a background briefing and any attribution would be for a senior defense official and maybe we should just go around the room and you could state your name:
My name is: Ana Montes,
XXX, YYY
Colonel :Ok, so what’s your interest?
YYY: Well, a number of areas--but I was in Cuba this weekend and Bob and I have been working on many issues, but specifically, on Cuba’s capabilities on the area of biological warfare (“BW”) on whether they have any capability in that arena or could rapidly develop such a capability.
Specially in light of what they have been saying about us over the last month which strikes us as very bizarre. They are offering us access to their fields, access to crops____ and also offering access to laboratories and I mean first of all it struck us completely out of left field--when you saw it- I was in Burbank, and I said, wait until you see this....and you know, why now? why this?--maybe that’s a good starting point- I mean--- what has evolved as to why they are now accusing the US of biological weapons?
COLONEL: This is not the first time. The history goes back to 1981. It deals with Dengue Fever accusations-- unfounded. Frankly, we always felt-- (again this is general sense of comparison) ---that their presence in other parts of the world, supporting Angola... and otherwise, really brought that and probably Conjunctivitis back to Cuba and then conveniently claims were made that this was somehow a biological warfare attack by the U.S. which was totally absurd. So this is a continuing thing...
But they haven’t made anything recently?
Col No. There hasn’t been any news about anything since that time period until very recently until the State Dept. aircraft incident. So everything has been sort of quite in that sense. So the accusations are there and we kind of shake our heads whenever they are made---because some of them are so bizarre ---you find with the case with the infestation that is happening in the general region and not just Cuba. But the State Dept. answered their questions.
XXX: But is there any particular reason why now? Is there anything that you guys can look at and say this is the reason or that is the reason? It’s been basically 14 years. I remember when the retired General Wilhelm ? went to that Senator Defense Information trip in 1994 -- and they were screaming about the US and and they cut him off...and said that the Miami Cubans... and suddenly the conversation ended--- and that appeared to me that they were lowering the temperature of the subject. And suddenly you know, this comes out of nowhere.
DI It’s really hard to know...I can tell you from our standpoint..we don’t see any any reason again from the standpoint of their perception of “BW” or whatever, why this should come up at this time. We monitor them, look at their country, and off course, are deeply interested in their capabilities, but there is nothing out of the ordinary which seems to have been the provocatour (if indeed, there is a reason that is the genesis of this or the nexxus of it) but it may not be -- it may just be a coincidence and maybe grabbed on to Castro for no reasons. Whether they are well thought of or not is also possibly an opportunity-- coincidental with an aircraft flying over and having a problem with a crop and 1 + 1 =2. And why not go back and bring this up again. Again nothing that we can say.
YYY: On the other side of the ledger, there have been over the last 20 years a proliferation of scientific institutes (Biotech Center, Institute of Tropical Center, The Finley Institute, The Geographic Institute + 10 others etc..) And I am told that even the institutions have declared for BL/ 3 BL4 facility declarations which give them a capability of .....
DI: Oh, you bet!. You don’t even necessarily need a BL 4 capability to undertake that type of program......but it dosen’t hurt..and it reflects..the fact is, just to get to the heart of it--what you said is essentially totally correct about that their biotechnology industry in many areas is equivalent (and certainly not across the whole spectrum-- but in many areas) equivalent to 1st world levels and they have some projects that certainly reflect significant advanced potential and certainly the Institute for Biotechnology in Havana is a good indicator of their capabilty for research projects They claim for instance, they are working on HIV, they produce vaccines, pharmaceuticals..
YYY: About 100 million dollars worth of exports?
DI: In fact, Castro favors, the biotech industry. He has personal interest in it. So, from a standpoint unlike that of many other countries we look at them from a 1st world capability- Cuba has all of the necessary ingridients to accomplish a BW effort if they would choose to do so. But, if that’s their intention---(which I can not discuss the details relating to that), but if so, the infrastructure affords them that potential.
YYY: Are there any indications of their intentions?
DI I can’t really go into that at all. Probably can’t give any more details about that unfortunately.
YYY: When we talk to other people, in other places in the government, they claim-- well, that the Cuban military does not do biological training. You know, their gas masks are a disaster, they have not replenished them which leads me to either one of two possiblities: a.) There is no program. or b.) There is a program, but outside the traditional military realm-- sort of a “dooms day”.
DI Certainly all that is possible. The one general statement that I would make about biological intentions is that the very fact whether the capability for physicial protection or medical protection exists or does not exist, is not a primary requisite for an offense of capabilty, so, it doesn’t necessarily (not just talking about Cuba but in the general sense) that its not even-- depending on how one would choose to affect a BW operation- you do not necessarily have to have your troops vaccinated or protected because in many senses, BW would be looked-- and is looked at- as less of a tactical capability and more of a strategic capability to be delivered upon someone else’s territory rather than yours.
YYY: Has he--now he apparently said something recently that was somewhat ambigous in this area-- (I have a head cold, I don’t know if I have some personal BW--or clouding of the mind)...He recently made a statement that the Miami Cubans had seized upon as an indicator that he’s got something going----Is there anything that strikes a cord with you in the last month or two?
DI Nothing that we’ve seen. We have seen the articles regarding the accusations about “Germ weapons and missiles” and frankly we do not put much credibility to that type of statement.
YYY: This was said by a formal Colonel?
DI Yes, and at this point it just doesn’t add up- and 2 and 2 doesn’t make 4. And so we just don’t pay too much credibility to this.
YYY: Is there any public statement that he’s ever made that has caused you any concern in this area?
DI Not really a public statement per se, no no. Our area of concern relates to his general “unfriendliness towards the US and his interest in biological (albeit)---and certainly civilan sector capabilities” which would be our concerns and also his potentials. Whenever a leader which such immense control takes a personal interest in an area that can have that potential, then our antena is of course raised and we are watching. Certainly, they are close to our borders and with the advanced capabilities this is something that we watch, but then again, off course, we watch many, many other countries that have this potential.
YYY: Now they are a signatory to the BW _______
When I look at the active reports, the full? reports there is no mention of . What is that an indicator of?
DI: Well, at this point I really wouldn’t like to try to read into the State Department does--and a ____ _ _? So I really do do want to comment on to why is there or not there.
DI: There are a lot of signatories that are mentioned that you probably see that are mentioned that
YYY: Yes, but there are some that are signatories that are mentioned as having programs or in wonderfully lithical diplomatic language Egypt, Taiwan,
Di: Yes, Syria, China.
YYY: But those are less of a pickle?
Di: Yes.
YYY: Right. I mean, Egypt and Taiwan I thought were particularly ____?
Di Yes, they really are. I really can’t answer that in either in an affirmative or negative why they were or were not included in that section.
YYY: I’ve got a couple of specific things that I’ve been thinking about-- within the last 24 hours people have been telling me-- and obviously, it is disturbing what I’ve been told because of the local of the southern extreme of the United States and the access with which it can reach us and --level of outrage, the point was there is a defector who came here two or three years ago, he is a physician who worked at a biotech center and claims that a toxin, (a para___ toxin) was being developed with the aid of a Japanese company--- you’re nodding?
DI: I am familiar with the information, and really can’t comment on that. We have looked at that closely and we have assessments but it gets into areas that I really would not want to try to provide.
YYY: Let me see if I can--would it be worthwhile for us to talk to this guy?
DI: My sense is that the way we always look at intelligence is that if you look at a single source, as such, it could be very misleading-- that’s why I can’t go on anything because it brings up textual information and if we say that we agree-- that he is valuable or not valuable- it brings up other information that I can’t go into which would corroborate or not corroborate with saying. So, you’re on your own!
YYY: Laughs, Ok., Well, I’ve also heard that there is a Naval Hospital in Havana-- have your interests?
DI: Yes,-continually, we see again coming mostly from the so-called, “free Cubans”-- a lot of information that comes out- I can’t characterize any one bit of that information as plus or minus, but I will say that classically most of the information that comes from that sector is more based on a tidbit of information that then becomes strapulated beyond what would be reasonable. It is very hard to find anything that you can actually corroborate. You have a data point and when you try to follow some of these data points they become simply something that just goes into thin air. There is nothing to base it on.
YYY: Is this because Cuba is such a difficult intelligence target or is it because the information is almost always wrong?
DI: Oh no, no, I would not even characterize it either way, difficult or not difficult or whatever. It’s just that the information that comes from that sector doesn’t help us necessarily-- in terms of accessing if Cuba has a capability or not. We’ve never seen were that’s been tied.
YYY: Do you look for imports or parts of equipment.
DI: We watch everything.
YYY: Great. You have 3 - Flash-4 facility being one--- fermentors?
DI: Yes.
YYY: Large scale fermentors?
DI: Absolutely .
YYY: Right. Small to large.
DI: Very minor dual use.
YYY: And then everything biological is dual use--as someone pointed out to me, if you look at nuclear, chemical and biological-- I mean, nuclear there is a small part which is dual use and a larger part which is military use- chemicals get a little more confusing- biological is hopeless.
DI: Pretty much although there exists (again not solely related or not related to Cuba with the Australian group) and they have been fairly successful (and we have supported the Australian group quite a bit, the US has) in trying to define that material that could lend itself to BW programing. Interestingly, again this is just background on BW and not Cuba, but pretty much when you look at it if you look at the genesis of the BW programming, it is strictly an offensive program what you are going to find is that -you are going to find an R&D effort dealing with agents and pretty much when you’re looking at agents it becomes very difficult to ascertain whether the program is going to actually split off in a “Y” towards defensive or commercial sector vs. Strictly offensive. But there are notes that exist-and the fact is that in the early phase it is virtually impossible to discriminate between the two. However, with the Australia group, you set certain limits as to the size of fermenters for instance that would be construed as being beyond that necessary for a normal pharmaceutical or commercial sector.
YYY: In kilograms or--
Di: No, liters (volumes)
YYY: What’s that 150?
Di: It keeps going back and forth and right now, 150 is a good number. Which a piot is about 50 to 70 where he sort of grilling it up sort of speak, getting ready to pour it into something to make it larger. And that’s starting off at 150, but when you are in large scale productions, what’s practical is about 1500 liters or so.--and that’s for a full capability.
? But you wouldn’t need large scale capability.
? You don’t need it.
YYY: Right. But they have them.
DI: Yes. And so as a consequence something they might have is smaller size fermentor. Which we would call pilot which could in fact lend itself to the production of enough biological agents (mainly talking about infectious agents right now, not toxins which are bi-products of other organisms) but with infectious agents. You can also---you can believe or not, grow biological agents in flasks and just have many, many, many flasks-- and that can give you the capability of producing enough agents, it doesn’t take a lot of organisms to cause infections
YYY: There are certain parts of organisms too.
DI: That is correct. There are literally--from a military standpoint- a very effective military effort-the way we look at biological is that first of all generally, (and again not bioterrorism or low intensive conflict) but more military-- you try to look at an agent that is not --because you are looking at hitting the individual causing the effect and moving on. You do not want an epidemic. From a military standpoint that becomes a logistical nightmare. That’s why Anthrax, botulin toxin also sit on the top of anyone’s list.
YYY: What about BEE and things like that.
Di: Yeah, BEE again, that’s a little more difficult virus to grow up and it takes more sophistication. But BEE certainly is a prom candidate and any of the ______group viruses and Middle Eastern Bee.
YYY: Any about Rheumatic fever?
Di: Rheumatic fever viruses are more difficult---the futility has yet to be demonstrated. You are working with not necessarily highly contagious viruses because--- if they were..
YYY: We would be dead!
Di: .the good news is that they would kill their host very rapidly and not spread on. And plus they are not spread throughout the aerosol or respiratory---for example you have a renal virus right now, probably an upper respiratory virus...
YYY: I sure do.
Di: And you are more contagious- depending if you are in the incubation period, how long have you had it?
YYY: I’m at the end of it.
DI: You are not in the incubation stage right now--you have Blue Cross and Blue Shield?
But actually what you produce in the early or incubation stages are called filmates and they are particles of sputum. It is a highly contagious virus but of the most biological are not readily contagious. If you wanted to try to get Anthrax you have to literally get down and touch the patient and get right in their face.
YYY: Well that’s where military _______
DI: Well, again, it depends on the goals-- and if you want to start certainly an epidemic, there might be some agents that you can pick up. For the most part when you get into agents that cause epidemics they are very hard to grow, they are hard to manage and to keep confined. So generally, they are not picked because they are just to hard to work with.
YYY: When you look at the various facilities, I’m assuming that the Biotech and Genetic Engineering is on the top of your list of things to look at and to watch. Are there others?
DI: Well we watch---there are more than a dozen or so key facilities and we watch them. Absolutely. We watch the whole Cuba capability very closely.
YYY: Is your work at the biotech center based on its large capacity, its large numbers of people, its large fermenters and it being a flash 4 facility--is it that primarily that gets you nervous or is it the fact that they have genetic engineering capabilities?
Di: Well, really, the first level of concern is with the technical infrastructure and that would lend itself. The genetic engineering portion, for the most, if you look at biological warfare in general, it is area, that again, that we are watching, following, but we’ve accessed that any country developing a BW capability first . With what is familiar to them Is classical- so genetic engineering is certainly something we have our eye on cause we are always ready for intervention. But for the most, our major concerns______
YYY: Does the Institute of Tropical Medicine interest you?
Di: They all do.
YYY: Ed and I spent a wonderful day when we met with the special troops- the Red Berets in Pinar Del Rio. Does that interest you in this area?
DI: Ah, not any more, I would say that I characterize it as....not any more than the whole capability of looking at the country in total. I can’t really go on focusing on any one specific element just to see if we have interest or not--we look at the country in total and its capabilities.
YYY So with the capabilities you are talking are the whole “Bio” ---.
DI: The whole bio capabilities, yes. What I was going to say in terms of us looking at the capability is when that juncture occurs that I was speaking about, that’s a very interesting point with BW because when a country decides to go towards weaponization- you can see a scale of capabilities it’s not indicative of legitimate commercial. Nothing Cuba is doing at all--.A large scale of production and any relationships, any concerns that they could just be just scaling off-- which would not be consistent with the BWC.
YYY: Have you seen any of that?
DI: I can’t talk about that.
YYY: I am also told that during the first two years of the Clinton administration, you guys prepared two reports on Cuba’s BW. Is that an accurate statement?
DI: We prepared several reports, not on Cuba BW but on Cuba as part of the world-- if you look at it. We were constantly preparing reports accessing the general capabilities of again, many countries so to say specifically, Cuba I can’t speak to that. When we look at lots of countries and its fair to say that whether its positive or negative again, I won’t characterize Cuba as having a BW program, but I’ll say that we follow it and we do prepare reports and access what their capabilities are.
YYY: Has there been any other analysis of the shoot down that would indicate that on that particular day that the order came directly from Fidel or Raul because continuously, they have given us the impression that it was their defense officer who had standing instructions to order the shoot down. But do you know anything more now about what happened?
Montes: That is our understanding as well. That this was a standing order -this was a decision which had been made weeks before.
YYY: A standing order?
Montes: Right, a standing order.
YYY: And nobody called Fidel and said, “Ok their out there....
Montes: Not as far as I know.
YYY: Is the air Marshall still around?
Montes: The air Marshall?
YYY: The person who ordered the shoot down on that particular day.
Montes: We have had no indication of any changes in command whatsoever, to the contrary.
YYY: What’s the contrary?
Montes: That the pilots themselves were highly praised and glorified within the military for what they had done and that the entire chain used congratulatory comments.
YYY: So there was only one--except---
Montes: Well, some instances of mistakes that might have been made. You know, technically/ tactically. But not the final outcome. The final outcome was much desired, much welcome by the higher military.
YYY: We were amazed when we were done there cause we flew in on morning after the shoot down that they did not have, the political types did not have, any sort of coordinated strategy or coordinated response. I mean we had breakfast with Alarcon that Tuesday morning. That Tuesday morning, and it was like--we kept waiting for them to say-- well off course we were able to determine that the planes were headed from Playa Baracoa and you know, Fidel was there or something. You know, some justification and there just wasn’t anything of any--you know..
Montes: I’m just saying that the military knew about this and they knew about it ahead of time-- and they knew this was coming down ahead of time. This was a military operation that they planned and it wasn’t quite examinated by the political elite.
YYY: So what was the tactical mistake?
Montes: Problems with equipment, mistakes primarily made by equipment, they did not function as it was expected to function. Pieces of equipment that did not function as it was expected to function.
YYY: So on the actual report it was technical (subheadings). And they knew because of Roque?
Montes: That’s what we suspect- in part. In part.
YYY: We had a very funny experience with Roque. He took out his little diary or phone book and he was showing us he that had the names of the FBI agent, you know, and the cell phone number to show me that he had made contacts with the FBI agent and then he was showing it to Ed and then he dropped it and when he dropped it we noted that there was not another entry in the entire book so this must have been a very important source because it was the only source. Everything was very well printed in that one page.
Montes: Did he tell you that he had been working for the Cuban Government from the beginning--that when he defected he was already a spy for the Cuban government? What did he say?
YYY: No, No. He said that he had changed his mind.
Montes: Changed his mind.
AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF CRIMINAL COMPLAINT,
ARREST WARRANT, AND SEARCH WARRANTS
I, Stephen A. McCoy, being duly sworn, hereby state the following under penalty of perjury:
1. I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and have been so
employed for approximately 20 years. I am currently assigned to the Washington Field Office to a
squad responsible for counter-intelligence relating to Cuba. I have worked in the counterintelligence
field for approximately 15 years and have worked specifically on counter-intelligence
matters involving Cuba for the last 12 years. As a result of my experience in counter-intelligence
investigations and foreign counter-intelligence training, I am familiar with the strategy, tactics,
methods, tradecraft and techniques of the Cuban foreign intelligence service and its agents.
2. This affidavit is submitted in support of an application for a complaint and arrest warrant
charging ANA BELEN MONTES with conspiracy to commit espionage, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 794(c), and for applications for four (4) search warrants to search the following items and
locations:
(1) the residence of ANA BELEN MONTES, such premises known and described
as a cooperative apartment located at 3039 Macomb Street, N.W., apartment 20, Washington, D.C.
20008, and further described in Attachment A to this affidavit;
(2) a red 2000 Toyota Echo, bearing vehicle identification number
JTDT1231Y0007841 and District of Columbia license plate number 993 190, which is registered
to ANA BELEN MONTES and anticipated to be within the District of Columbia;
(3) room C6-146A, 200 MacDill Boulevard, Washington, D.C. 20340, which is the
office/work space assigned to ANA BELEN MONTES at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center
located on Bolling Air Force Base;
-2-
(4) safe deposit box #526 leased by ANA BELEN MONTES at Riggs Bank, N.A.,
Friendship Branch, 4249 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
3. Information in this affidavit is based on my personal knowledge and on information
provided to me by other counter-intelligence investigators and law enforcement officers during the
course of this investigation. Searches and various forms of surveillance have been conducted
pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended (FISA) and orders of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
I. Background
4. ANA BELEN MONTES is a United States citizen born on February 28, 1957, on a U.S.
military installation in Nurnberg, Germany. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979
and obtained a masters degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International
Studies in 1988. She is single and lives alone at 3039 Macomb Street, N.W., apartment 20,
Washington, D.C. 20008, which residence is further described in Attachment A. She has registered
in her name a red 2000 Toyota Echo, bearing vehicle identification number JTDT1231Y0007841
and District of Columbia license plate number 993 190, which is regularly parked in the vicinity of
her residence, and which she regularly uses to commute to her place of employment.
5. MONTES is currently employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a senior
intelligence analyst. Her current office is at 200 MacDill Boulevard, located on Bolling Air Force
Base, Washington, D.C. 20340. Her assigned office space is C6-146A. She has been employed by
DIA as an analyst since September 1985. Since 1992, she has specialized in Cuba matters. She is
currently the senior analyst responsible for matters pertaining to Cuba. During the course of her
-3-
employment, MONTES has had direct and authorized access to classified information relating to the
national defense.
6. Records obtained from Riggs Bank reveal that MONTES has continually leased safe
deposit box number 526 at Riggs Bank, N.A., Friendship Branch, 4249 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. since September 2, 1993.
7. Classified information is defined by Executive Order No. 12,958, 60 Fed. Reg.19,825
(1995), as follows: information in any form that (1) is owned by, produced by or for, or under the
control of the United States government; (2) falls within one or more of the categories set forth in
section 1.5 of the order (including intelligence sources and methods, cryptology, military plans, and
vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, projects, or plans relating to the national
security), and (3) is classified by an original classification authority who determines that its
unauthorized disclosure reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security.
Under the executive order, the designation "Confidential" shall be applied to information, the
unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national
security. The designation "Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of
which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security. The
designation "Top Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which
reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
8. In addition, Executive Order No. 12,958 provides that the secretaries of State, Defense and
Energy are authorized to create "special access programs" upon certain specific findings including
that the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific classified information is exceptional. Under such a
-4-
program, the safeguarding and access requirements to information covered by the program exceed
those normally required for information at the same classification level.
9. Under 32 C.F.R. § 159a.9, Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) refers to
information and material that requires special controls for restricted handling.
10. During her employment at DIA, MONTES has continuously held a security clearance and
has had regular, authorized access to classified information. I know that a person who receives such
clearances is required to be briefed on the procedures for properly handling classified information
and the penalties for failing to do so, and that such a person must sign certifications of understanding
and agreement in connection with those briefings. I have reviewed a “Classified Information
Nondisclosure Agreement” (Standard Form 189) that MONTES signed on September 30, 1985. In
that document MONTES acknowledged that she was aware that unauthorized disclosure of classified
information could cause irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a
foreign nation, that she would never divulge such information to an unauthorized person, and that
she understood that she was obligated to comply with laws and regulations that prohibit the
unauthorized disclosure of classified information, and that she further understood such a disclosure
could constitute a violation of United States criminal law including 18 U.S.C. § 794. I have also
reviewed a “Security Briefing/Debriefing Acknowledgment” form signed by MONTES on May 15,
1997, briefing her into a Special Access Program (SAP). On this date, specifically in connection
with this SAP, MONTES signed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement,
in which she acknowledged that the unauthorized disclosure of SCI may violate federal criminal law,
including 18 U.S.C. § 794, and that such disclosure could cause irreparable injury to the United
States or be used to the advantage of a foreign nation.
-5-
II. MONTES's Toshiba Laptop Computer and Shortwave Radio
A. Communication From the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) to MONTES via
Shortwave Radio
11. Based on my knowledge and familiarity with the methodology of the Cuban intelligence
service, I am aware that the CuIS often communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating
outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method,
the CuIS broadcasts on a particular frequency a series of numbers. The clandestine agent,
monitoring the message on a shortwave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses
a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into
Spanish-language text. This was the methodology employed by some of the defendants convicted
last June in the Southern District of Florida of espionage on behalf of Cuba and acting as
unregistered agents of Cuba, in the case of United States of America v. Gerardo Hernandez, et al.,
Cr. No. 98-721-CR-Lenard(s)(s). Although it is very difficult to decrypt a message without access
to the relevant decryption program, once decrypted on the agent's computer the decrypted message
resides on the computer's hard drive unless the agent takes careful steps to cleanse the hard drive of
the message. Simply "deleting" the file is not sufficient.
12. Based on the evidence described below, I have concluded that MONTES was a
clandestine CuIS agent who communicated with her handling CuIS officer in the manner described
above.
13. A receipt obtained from a CompUSA store located in Alexandria, Virginia indicated that
on October 5, 1996, one "Ana B. Montes" purchased a refurbished Toshiba laptop computer, model
405CS, serial number 10568512.
-6-
14. During a court-authorized surreptitious entry into MONTES's residence, conducted by
the FBI on May 25, 2001, FBI agents observed in her residence a Toshiba laptop computer with the
serial number set out above. During the search, the agents electronically copied the laptop’s hard
drive. During subsequent analysis of the copied hard drive, the FBI recovered substantial text that
had been deleted from the laptop's hard drive.
15. The recovered text from the laptop's hard drive included significant portions of a Spanishlanguage
message, which when printed out with standard font comes to approximately 11 pages of
text. The recovered portion of the message does not expressly indicate when it was composed.
However, it instructs the message recipient to travel to "the Friendship Heights station" on "Saturday,
November 23rd." My review of a calendar indicates that November 23 fell on a Saturday in 1996;
the next time thereafter November 23 falls on a Saturday is in 2002. Accordingly, this message was
composed sometime before November 23, 1996, and entered onto MONTES's laptop sometime after
October 5, 1996, the date she purchased it. Based on its content, I have concluded that it is a
message from a CuIS officer to MONTES.
16. Portions of the recovered message included the following: “You should go to the WIPE
program and destroy that file according to the steps which we discussed during the contact. This is
a basic step to take every time you receive a radio message or some disk.”
17. During this same search, the agents also observed a Sony shortwave radio stored in a
previously opened box on the floor of the bedroom. The agents turned on the radio to confirm that
it was operable. Also found was an earpiece that could be utilized with this shortwave radio,
allowing the radio to be listened to more privately. Similar earpieces were found in the residences
of the defendants in the Hernandez case, as described above in paragraph 11.
-7-
18. The recovered portion of the message begins with the following passage:
Nevertheless, I learned that you entered the code communicating that
you were having problems with radio reception. The code alone
covers a lot, meaning that we do not know specifically what types of
difficulty you are having. Given that it's only been a few days since
we began the use of new systems, let's not rule out that the problem
might be related to them. In that case, I'm going to repeat the
necessary steps to take in order to retrieve a message.
The message then describes how the person reading the message should "write the information you
send to us and the numbers of the radio messages which you receive." The message later refers to
going "to a new line when you get to the group 10 of the numbers that you receive via radio," and
still later gives as an "example" a series of groups of numbers: "22333 44444 77645 77647 90909
13425 76490 78399 7865498534." After some further instruction, the message states: "Here the
program deciphers the message and it retrieves the text onto the screen, asking you if the text is okay
or not." Near the conclusion of the message, there is the statement "In this shipment you will receive
the following disks: . . . 2) Disk "R1" to decipher our mailings and radio."
19. Further analysis of MONTES's copied Toshiba hard drive identified text consisting of
a series of 150 5-number groups. The text begins, "30107 24624," and continues until 150 such
groups are listed. The FBI has determined that the precise same numbers, in the precise same order,
were broadcast on February 6, 1999, at AM frequency 7887 kHz, by a woman speaking Spanish,
who introduced the broadcast with the words "Attencion! Attencion!" The frequency used in that
February 1999 broadcast is within the frequency range of the shortwave radio observed in
MONTES's residence on May 25, 2001.
B. Communication Between the CuIS and MONTES via Computer Diskette
-8-
20. Based on my knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, I am aware that a
clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by typing a
message onto a computer, and then encrypting and saving it to a diskette. The agent thereafter
physically delivers the diskette, either directly or indirectly, to the officer. In addition, as an
alternative to sending an encrypted shortwave radio broadcast, a CuIS officer often will similarly
place an encrypted message onto a diskette and again simply physically deliver the diskette,
clandestinely, to the agent. Upon receipt of the encrypted message, either by the CuIS officer or the
agent, the recipient employs a decryption program contained on a separate diskette to decrypt the
message. The exchange of diskettes containing encrypted messages, and the use of decryption
programs contained on separate diskettes, was one of the clandestine communication techniques
utilized by the defendants in the Hernandez case described above in paragraph 11. Although it is
difficult to decrypt a message without the decryption program, the very process of encrypting or
decrypting a message on a computer causes a decrypted copy of the message to be placed on the
computer's hard drive. Unless affirmative steps are taken to cleanse the hard drive, beyond simply
"deleting" the message, the message can be retrieved from the hard drive.
21. Based on the evidence described below, I have concluded that MONTES was a CuIS
agent who communicated with her CuIS handling officer by passing and receiving computer
diskettes containing encrypted messages.
22. The message described above that was contained on the hard drive of MONTES's laptop
computer contained the following passage:
Continue writing along the same lines you have so far, but cipher the
information every time you do, so that you do not leave prepared
information that is not ciphered in the house. This is the most
-9-
sensitive and compromising information that you hold. We realize
that this entails the difficulty of not being able to revise or consult
what was written previously before each shipment, but we think it is
worth taking this provisional measure. It is not a problem for us if
some intelligence element comes repeated or with another defect
which obviously cannot help, we understand this perfectly.-- Give
“E” only the ciphered disks. Do not give, for the time being, printed
or photographed material. Keep the materials which you can justify
keeping until we agree that you can deliver them.-- Keep up the
measure of formatting the disks we send you with couriers or letters
as soon as possible, leaving conventional notes as reminders only of
those things to reply to or report.
The message goes on to refer to a "shipment" that contains "Disk 'S1' - to cipher the information you
send," and, as indicated in the previous section, to "Disk 'R1' to decipher our mailings and radio."
Earlier in the message, there is a reference to "information you receive either via radio or disk."
23. During the court-authorized search of the residence on May 25, 2001, two boxes
containing a total of 16 diskettes were observed. During a subsequent such search on August 8,
2001, a box containing 41 diskettes, later determined to be blank, were observed. Finally, records
obtained from a Radio Shack store located near MONTES's residence indicate that MONTES
purchased 160 floppy diskettes during the period May 1, 1993, to November 2, 1997.
III. Communication from MONTES to the CuIS by Pager
24. Based on my knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, I am aware that a
clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by making calls
to a pager number from a pay telephone booth and entering a pre-assigned code to convey a
particular message. This methodology was utilized by the defendants in the Hernandez case
described above in paragraph 11.
-10-
25. Based on the evidence described below, I believe that MONTES has been communicating
with her handling CuIS officer in this fashion.
26. In the same message copied from MONTES's hard drive that has been described earlier
in this affidavit, there is a passage that states:
C) Beepers that you have. The only beepers in use at present are the
following: 1) (917) [first seven-digit telephone number omitted from
this application], use it with identification code 635. 2) (917) [second
seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application]. Use it
with identification code 937. 3) (917) [third seven-digit telephone
number omitted from this application] Use it only with identification
code 2900 . . . because this beeper is public, in other words it is
known to belong to the Cuban Mission at the UN and we assume
there is some control over it. You may use this beeper only in the
event you cannot communicate with those mentioned in 1) and 2),
which are secure.
Based on my experience and knowledge, I have concluded that the reference to “control over it” in
the above passage refers to the CuIS officer’s suspicion that the FBI is aware that this beeper number
is associated with the Cuban government and is monitoring it in some fashion.
27. In addition, as described previously, the message on the laptop's hard drive includes a
portion stating that the message recipient "entered the code communicating that you were having
problems with radio reception." Based on the evidence described above, I have concluded this
portion of the message indicates that MONTES at some point shortly prior to receiving the message
sent a page to her CuIS officer handler consisting of a pre-assigned series of numbers to indicate she
was having communication problems.
28. Based on evidence obtained during the FBI's physical surveillance of MONTES
conducted between May and September 2001, I have concluded that MONTES continues to send
coded pages to the CuIS. This evidence is described below in paragraphs 38 to 45.
-11-
III. MONTES's Transmission of Classified Information to the CuIS
29. The same message described above, as well as other messages recovered from the laptop's
hard drive, contained the following information indicating that MONTES had been tasked to provide
and did provide classified information to the CuIS.
30. In one portion of the message discussed above, the CuIS officer states:
What *** said during the meeting . . . was very interesting. Surely
you remember well his plans and expectations when he was coming
here. If I remember right, on that occasion, we told you how
tremendously useful the information you gave us from the meetings
with him resulted, and how we were waiting here for him with open
arms.
31. I have replaced in this application with "***" a word that begins with a capital letter,
which was not translated, and is in fact the true last name of a U.S. intelligence officer who was
present in an undercover capacity, in Cuba, during a period that began prior to October 1996. The
above quoted portion of the message indicates that MONTES disclosed the U.S. officer's intelligence
agency affiliation and anticipated presence in Cuba to the CuIS, which information is classified
"Secret." As a result, the Cuban government was able to direct its counter-intelligence resources
against the U.S. officer ("we were waiting here for him with open arms").
32. The very next section in the message states:
We think the opportunity you will have to participate in the ACOM
exercise in December is very good. Practically, everything that takes
place there will be of intelligence value. Let's see if it deals with
contingency plans and specific targets in Cuba, which are to
prioritized interests for us.
33. I have concluded that the "ACOM exercise in December" is a reference to a Decem
DATE: JUNE 4, 1997
Maybe for the tape we could just review that I am Colonel JJJfrom the Department of Intelligence’s (DI) public Affairs Office. We are here to do a background interview generally speaking on the topic of Cuba. It’s a background briefing and any attribution would be for a senior defense official and maybe we should just go around the room and you could state your name:
My name is: Ana Montes,
XXX, YYY
Colonel :Ok, so what’s your interest?
YYY: Well, a number of areas--but I was in Cuba this weekend and Bob and I have been working on many issues, but specifically, on Cuba’s capabilities on the area of biological warfare (“BW”) on whether they have any capability in that arena or could rapidly develop such a capability.
Specially in light of what they have been saying about us over the last month which strikes us as very bizarre. They are offering us access to their fields, access to crops____ and also offering access to laboratories and I mean first of all it struck us completely out of left field--when you saw it- I was in Burbank, and I said, wait until you see this....and you know, why now? why this?--maybe that’s a good starting point- I mean--- what has evolved as to why they are now accusing the US of biological weapons?
COLONEL: This is not the first time. The history goes back to 1981. It deals with Dengue Fever accusations-- unfounded. Frankly, we always felt-- (again this is general sense of comparison) ---that their presence in other parts of the world, supporting Angola... and otherwise, really brought that and probably Conjunctivitis back to Cuba and then conveniently claims were made that this was somehow a biological warfare attack by the U.S. which was totally absurd. So this is a continuing thing...
But they haven’t made anything recently?
Col No. There hasn’t been any news about anything since that time period until very recently until the State Dept. aircraft incident. So everything has been sort of quite in that sense. So the accusations are there and we kind of shake our heads whenever they are made---because some of them are so bizarre ---you find with the case with the infestation that is happening in the general region and not just Cuba. But the State Dept. answered their questions.
XXX: But is there any particular reason why now? Is there anything that you guys can look at and say this is the reason or that is the reason? It’s been basically 14 years. I remember when the retired General Wilhelm ? went to that Senator Defense Information trip in 1994 -- and they were screaming about the US and and they cut him off...and said that the Miami Cubans... and suddenly the conversation ended--- and that appeared to me that they were lowering the temperature of the subject. And suddenly you know, this comes out of nowhere.
DI It’s really hard to know...I can tell you from our standpoint..we don’t see any any reason again from the standpoint of their perception of “BW” or whatever, why this should come up at this time. We monitor them, look at their country, and off course, are deeply interested in their capabilities, but there is nothing out of the ordinary which seems to have been the provocatour (if indeed, there is a reason that is the genesis of this or the nexxus of it) but it may not be -- it may just be a coincidence and maybe grabbed on to Castro for no reasons. Whether they are well thought of or not is also possibly an opportunity-- coincidental with an aircraft flying over and having a problem with a crop and 1 + 1 =2. And why not go back and bring this up again. Again nothing that we can say.
YYY: On the other side of the ledger, there have been over the last 20 years a proliferation of scientific institutes (Biotech Center, Institute of Tropical Center, The Finley Institute, The Geographic Institute + 10 others etc..) And I am told that even the institutions have declared for BL/ 3 BL4 facility declarations which give them a capability of .....
DI: Oh, you bet!. You don’t even necessarily need a BL 4 capability to undertake that type of program......but it dosen’t hurt..and it reflects..the fact is, just to get to the heart of it--what you said is essentially totally correct about that their biotechnology industry in many areas is equivalent (and certainly not across the whole spectrum-- but in many areas) equivalent to 1st world levels and they have some projects that certainly reflect significant advanced potential and certainly the Institute for Biotechnology in Havana is a good indicator of their capabilty for research projects They claim for instance, they are working on HIV, they produce vaccines, pharmaceuticals..
YYY: About 100 million dollars worth of exports?
DI: In fact, Castro favors, the biotech industry. He has personal interest in it. So, from a standpoint unlike that of many other countries we look at them from a 1st world capability- Cuba has all of the necessary ingridients to accomplish a BW effort if they would choose to do so. But, if that’s their intention---(which I can not discuss the details relating to that), but if so, the infrastructure affords them that potential.
YYY: Are there any indications of their intentions?
DI I can’t really go into that at all. Probably can’t give any more details about that unfortunately.
YYY: When we talk to other people, in other places in the government, they claim-- well, that the Cuban military does not do biological training. You know, their gas masks are a disaster, they have not replenished them which leads me to either one of two possiblities: a.) There is no program. or b.) There is a program, but outside the traditional military realm-- sort of a “dooms day”.
DI Certainly all that is possible. The one general statement that I would make about biological intentions is that the very fact whether the capability for physicial protection or medical protection exists or does not exist, is not a primary requisite for an offense of capabilty, so, it doesn’t necessarily (not just talking about Cuba but in the general sense) that its not even-- depending on how one would choose to affect a BW operation- you do not necessarily have to have your troops vaccinated or protected because in many senses, BW would be looked-- and is looked at- as less of a tactical capability and more of a strategic capability to be delivered upon someone else’s territory rather than yours.
YYY: Has he--now he apparently said something recently that was somewhat ambigous in this area-- (I have a head cold, I don’t know if I have some personal BW--or clouding of the mind)...He recently made a statement that the Miami Cubans had seized upon as an indicator that he’s got something going----Is there anything that strikes a cord with you in the last month or two?
DI Nothing that we’ve seen. We have seen the articles regarding the accusations about “Germ weapons and missiles” and frankly we do not put much credibility to that type of statement.
YYY: This was said by a formal Colonel?
DI Yes, and at this point it just doesn’t add up- and 2 and 2 doesn’t make 4. And so we just don’t pay too much credibility to this.
YYY: Is there any public statement that he’s ever made that has caused you any concern in this area?
DI Not really a public statement per se, no no. Our area of concern relates to his general “unfriendliness towards the US and his interest in biological (albeit)---and certainly civilan sector capabilities” which would be our concerns and also his potentials. Whenever a leader which such immense control takes a personal interest in an area that can have that potential, then our antena is of course raised and we are watching. Certainly, they are close to our borders and with the advanced capabilities this is something that we watch, but then again, off course, we watch many, many other countries that have this potential.
YYY: Now they are a signatory to the BW _______
When I look at the active reports, the full? reports there is no mention of . What is that an indicator of?
DI: Well, at this point I really wouldn’t like to try to read into the State Department does--and a ____ _ _? So I really do do want to comment on to why is there or not there.
DI: There are a lot of signatories that are mentioned that you probably see that are mentioned that
YYY: Yes, but there are some that are signatories that are mentioned as having programs or in wonderfully lithical diplomatic language Egypt, Taiwan,
Di: Yes, Syria, China.
YYY: But those are less of a pickle?
Di: Yes.
YYY: Right. I mean, Egypt and Taiwan I thought were particularly ____?
Di Yes, they really are. I really can’t answer that in either in an affirmative or negative why they were or were not included in that section.
YYY: I’ve got a couple of specific things that I’ve been thinking about-- within the last 24 hours people have been telling me-- and obviously, it is disturbing what I’ve been told because of the local of the southern extreme of the United States and the access with which it can reach us and --level of outrage, the point was there is a defector who came here two or three years ago, he is a physician who worked at a biotech center and claims that a toxin, (a para___ toxin) was being developed with the aid of a Japanese company--- you’re nodding?
DI: I am familiar with the information, and really can’t comment on that. We have looked at that closely and we have assessments but it gets into areas that I really would not want to try to provide.
YYY: Let me see if I can--would it be worthwhile for us to talk to this guy?
DI: My sense is that the way we always look at intelligence is that if you look at a single source, as such, it could be very misleading-- that’s why I can’t go on anything because it brings up textual information and if we say that we agree-- that he is valuable or not valuable- it brings up other information that I can’t go into which would corroborate or not corroborate with saying. So, you’re on your own!
YYY: Laughs, Ok., Well, I’ve also heard that there is a Naval Hospital in Havana-- have your interests?
DI: Yes,-continually, we see again coming mostly from the so-called, “free Cubans”-- a lot of information that comes out- I can’t characterize any one bit of that information as plus or minus, but I will say that classically most of the information that comes from that sector is more based on a tidbit of information that then becomes strapulated beyond what would be reasonable. It is very hard to find anything that you can actually corroborate. You have a data point and when you try to follow some of these data points they become simply something that just goes into thin air. There is nothing to base it on.
YYY: Is this because Cuba is such a difficult intelligence target or is it because the information is almost always wrong?
DI: Oh no, no, I would not even characterize it either way, difficult or not difficult or whatever. It’s just that the information that comes from that sector doesn’t help us necessarily-- in terms of accessing if Cuba has a capability or not. We’ve never seen were that’s been tied.
YYY: Do you look for imports or parts of equipment.
DI: We watch everything.
YYY: Great. You have 3 - Flash-4 facility being one--- fermentors?
DI: Yes.
YYY: Large scale fermentors?
DI: Absolutely .
YYY: Right. Small to large.
DI: Very minor dual use.
YYY: And then everything biological is dual use--as someone pointed out to me, if you look at nuclear, chemical and biological-- I mean, nuclear there is a small part which is dual use and a larger part which is military use- chemicals get a little more confusing- biological is hopeless.
DI: Pretty much although there exists (again not solely related or not related to Cuba with the Australian group) and they have been fairly successful (and we have supported the Australian group quite a bit, the US has) in trying to define that material that could lend itself to BW programing. Interestingly, again this is just background on BW and not Cuba, but pretty much when you look at it if you look at the genesis of the BW programming, it is strictly an offensive program what you are going to find is that -you are going to find an R&D effort dealing with agents and pretty much when you’re looking at agents it becomes very difficult to ascertain whether the program is going to actually split off in a “Y” towards defensive or commercial sector vs. Strictly offensive. But there are notes that exist-and the fact is that in the early phase it is virtually impossible to discriminate between the two. However, with the Australia group, you set certain limits as to the size of fermenters for instance that would be construed as being beyond that necessary for a normal pharmaceutical or commercial sector.
YYY: In kilograms or--
Di: No, liters (volumes)
YYY: What’s that 150?
Di: It keeps going back and forth and right now, 150 is a good number. Which a piot is about 50 to 70 where he sort of grilling it up sort of speak, getting ready to pour it into something to make it larger. And that’s starting off at 150, but when you are in large scale productions, what’s practical is about 1500 liters or so.--and that’s for a full capability.
? But you wouldn’t need large scale capability.
? You don’t need it.
YYY: Right. But they have them.
DI: Yes. And so as a consequence something they might have is smaller size fermentor. Which we would call pilot which could in fact lend itself to the production of enough biological agents (mainly talking about infectious agents right now, not toxins which are bi-products of other organisms) but with infectious agents. You can also---you can believe or not, grow biological agents in flasks and just have many, many, many flasks-- and that can give you the capability of producing enough agents, it doesn’t take a lot of organisms to cause infections
YYY: There are certain parts of organisms too.
DI: That is correct. There are literally--from a military standpoint- a very effective military effort-the way we look at biological is that first of all generally, (and again not bioterrorism or low intensive conflict) but more military-- you try to look at an agent that is not --because you are looking at hitting the individual causing the effect and moving on. You do not want an epidemic. From a military standpoint that becomes a logistical nightmare. That’s why Anthrax, botulin toxin also sit on the top of anyone’s list.
YYY: What about BEE and things like that.
Di: Yeah, BEE again, that’s a little more difficult virus to grow up and it takes more sophistication. But BEE certainly is a prom candidate and any of the ______group viruses and Middle Eastern Bee.
YYY: Any about Rheumatic fever?
Di: Rheumatic fever viruses are more difficult---the futility has yet to be demonstrated. You are working with not necessarily highly contagious viruses because--- if they were..
YYY: We would be dead!
Di: .the good news is that they would kill their host very rapidly and not spread on. And plus they are not spread throughout the aerosol or respiratory---for example you have a renal virus right now, probably an upper respiratory virus...
YYY: I sure do.
Di: And you are more contagious- depending if you are in the incubation period, how long have you had it?
YYY: I’m at the end of it.
DI: You are not in the incubation stage right now--you have Blue Cross and Blue Shield?
But actually what you produce in the early or incubation stages are called filmates and they are particles of sputum. It is a highly contagious virus but of the most biological are not readily contagious. If you wanted to try to get Anthrax you have to literally get down and touch the patient and get right in their face.
YYY: Well that’s where military _______
DI: Well, again, it depends on the goals-- and if you want to start certainly an epidemic, there might be some agents that you can pick up. For the most part when you get into agents that cause epidemics they are very hard to grow, they are hard to manage and to keep confined. So generally, they are not picked because they are just to hard to work with.
YYY: When you look at the various facilities, I’m assuming that the Biotech and Genetic Engineering is on the top of your list of things to look at and to watch. Are there others?
DI: Well we watch---there are more than a dozen or so key facilities and we watch them. Absolutely. We watch the whole Cuba capability very closely.
YYY: Is your work at the biotech center based on its large capacity, its large numbers of people, its large fermenters and it being a flash 4 facility--is it that primarily that gets you nervous or is it the fact that they have genetic engineering capabilities?
Di: Well, really, the first level of concern is with the technical infrastructure and that would lend itself. The genetic engineering portion, for the most, if you look at biological warfare in general, it is area, that again, that we are watching, following, but we’ve accessed that any country developing a BW capability first . With what is familiar to them Is classical- so genetic engineering is certainly something we have our eye on cause we are always ready for intervention. But for the most, our major concerns______
YYY: Does the Institute of Tropical Medicine interest you?
Di: They all do.
YYY: Ed and I spent a wonderful day when we met with the special troops- the Red Berets in Pinar Del Rio. Does that interest you in this area?
DI: Ah, not any more, I would say that I characterize it as....not any more than the whole capability of looking at the country in total. I can’t really go on focusing on any one specific element just to see if we have interest or not--we look at the country in total and its capabilities.
YYY So with the capabilities you are talking are the whole “Bio” ---.
DI: The whole bio capabilities, yes. What I was going to say in terms of us looking at the capability is when that juncture occurs that I was speaking about, that’s a very interesting point with BW because when a country decides to go towards weaponization- you can see a scale of capabilities it’s not indicative of legitimate commercial. Nothing Cuba is doing at all--.A large scale of production and any relationships, any concerns that they could just be just scaling off-- which would not be consistent with the BWC.
YYY: Have you seen any of that?
DI: I can’t talk about that.
YYY: I am also told that during the first two years of the Clinton administration, you guys prepared two reports on Cuba’s BW. Is that an accurate statement?
DI: We prepared several reports, not on Cuba BW but on Cuba as part of the world-- if you look at it. We were constantly preparing reports accessing the general capabilities of again, many countries so to say specifically, Cuba I can’t speak to that. When we look at lots of countries and its fair to say that whether its positive or negative again, I won’t characterize Cuba as having a BW program, but I’ll say that we follow it and we do prepare reports and access what their capabilities are.
YYY: Has there been any other analysis of the shoot down that would indicate that on that particular day that the order came directly from Fidel or Raul because continuously, they have given us the impression that it was their defense officer who had standing instructions to order the shoot down. But do you know anything more now about what happened?
Montes: That is our understanding as well. That this was a standing order -this was a decision which had been made weeks before.
YYY: A standing order?
Montes: Right, a standing order.
YYY: And nobody called Fidel and said, “Ok their out there....
Montes: Not as far as I know.
YYY: Is the air Marshall still around?
Montes: The air Marshall?
YYY: The person who ordered the shoot down on that particular day.
Montes: We have had no indication of any changes in command whatsoever, to the contrary.
YYY: What’s the contrary?
Montes: That the pilots themselves were highly praised and glorified within the military for what they had done and that the entire chain used congratulatory comments.
YYY: So there was only one--except---
Montes: Well, some instances of mistakes that might have been made. You know, technically/ tactically. But not the final outcome. The final outcome was much desired, much welcome by the higher military.
YYY: We were amazed when we were done there cause we flew in on morning after the shoot down that they did not have, the political types did not have, any sort of coordinated strategy or coordinated response. I mean we had breakfast with Alarcon that Tuesday morning. That Tuesday morning, and it was like--we kept waiting for them to say-- well off course we were able to determine that the planes were headed from Playa Baracoa and you know, Fidel was there or something. You know, some justification and there just wasn’t anything of any--you know..
Montes: I’m just saying that the military knew about this and they knew about it ahead of time-- and they knew this was coming down ahead of time. This was a military operation that they planned and it wasn’t quite examinated by the political elite.
YYY: So what was the tactical mistake?
Montes: Problems with equipment, mistakes primarily made by equipment, they did not function as it was expected to function. Pieces of equipment that did not function as it was expected to function.
YYY: So on the actual report it was technical (subheadings). And they knew because of Roque?
Montes: That’s what we suspect- in part. In part.
YYY: We had a very funny experience with Roque. He took out his little diary or phone book and he was showing us he that had the names of the FBI agent, you know, and the cell phone number to show me that he had made contacts with the FBI agent and then he was showing it to Ed and then he dropped it and when he dropped it we noted that there was not another entry in the entire book so this must have been a very important source because it was the only source. Everything was very well printed in that one page.
Montes: Did he tell you that he had been working for the Cuban Government from the beginning--that when he defected he was already a spy for the Cuban government? What did he say?
YYY: No, No. He said that he had changed his mind.
Montes: Changed his mind.
AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF CRIMINAL COMPLAINT,
ARREST WARRANT, AND SEARCH WARRANTS
I, Stephen A. McCoy, being duly sworn, hereby state the following under penalty of perjury:
1. I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and have been so
employed for approximately 20 years. I am currently assigned to the Washington Field Office to a
squad responsible for counter-intelligence relating to Cuba. I have worked in the counterintelligence
field for approximately 15 years and have worked specifically on counter-intelligence
matters involving Cuba for the last 12 years. As a result of my experience in counter-intelligence
investigations and foreign counter-intelligence training, I am familiar with the strategy, tactics,
methods, tradecraft and techniques of the Cuban foreign intelligence service and its agents.
2. This affidavit is submitted in support of an application for a complaint and arrest warrant
charging ANA BELEN MONTES with conspiracy to commit espionage, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 794(c), and for applications for four (4) search warrants to search the following items and
locations:
(1) the residence of ANA BELEN MONTES, such premises known and described
as a cooperative apartment located at 3039 Macomb Street, N.W., apartment 20, Washington, D.C.
20008, and further described in Attachment A to this affidavit;
(2) a red 2000 Toyota Echo, bearing vehicle identification number
JTDT1231Y0007841 and District of Columbia license plate number 993 190, which is registered
to ANA BELEN MONTES and anticipated to be within the District of Columbia;
(3) room C6-146A, 200 MacDill Boulevard, Washington, D.C. 20340, which is the
office/work space assigned to ANA BELEN MONTES at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center
located on Bolling Air Force Base;
-2-
(4) safe deposit box #526 leased by ANA BELEN MONTES at Riggs Bank, N.A.,
Friendship Branch, 4249 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
3. Information in this affidavit is based on my personal knowledge and on information
provided to me by other counter-intelligence investigators and law enforcement officers during the
course of this investigation. Searches and various forms of surveillance have been conducted
pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended (FISA) and orders of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
I. Background
4. ANA BELEN MONTES is a United States citizen born on February 28, 1957, on a U.S.
military installation in Nurnberg, Germany. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1979
and obtained a masters degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International
Studies in 1988. She is single and lives alone at 3039 Macomb Street, N.W., apartment 20,
Washington, D.C. 20008, which residence is further described in Attachment A. She has registered
in her name a red 2000 Toyota Echo, bearing vehicle identification number JTDT1231Y0007841
and District of Columbia license plate number 993 190, which is regularly parked in the vicinity of
her residence, and which she regularly uses to commute to her place of employment.
5. MONTES is currently employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as a senior
intelligence analyst. Her current office is at 200 MacDill Boulevard, located on Bolling Air Force
Base, Washington, D.C. 20340. Her assigned office space is C6-146A. She has been employed by
DIA as an analyst since September 1985. Since 1992, she has specialized in Cuba matters. She is
currently the senior analyst responsible for matters pertaining to Cuba. During the course of her
-3-
employment, MONTES has had direct and authorized access to classified information relating to the
national defense.
6. Records obtained from Riggs Bank reveal that MONTES has continually leased safe
deposit box number 526 at Riggs Bank, N.A., Friendship Branch, 4249 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.,
Washington, D.C. since September 2, 1993.
7. Classified information is defined by Executive Order No. 12,958, 60 Fed. Reg.19,825
(1995), as follows: information in any form that (1) is owned by, produced by or for, or under the
control of the United States government; (2) falls within one or more of the categories set forth in
section 1.5 of the order (including intelligence sources and methods, cryptology, military plans, and
vulnerabilities or capabilities of systems, installations, projects, or plans relating to the national
security), and (3) is classified by an original classification authority who determines that its
unauthorized disclosure reasonably could be expected to result in damage to the national security.
Under the executive order, the designation "Confidential" shall be applied to information, the
unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause damage to the national
security. The designation "Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of
which reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage to the national security. The
designation "Top Secret" shall be applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which
reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.
8. In addition, Executive Order No. 12,958 provides that the secretaries of State, Defense and
Energy are authorized to create "special access programs" upon certain specific findings including
that the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific classified information is exceptional. Under such a
-4-
program, the safeguarding and access requirements to information covered by the program exceed
those normally required for information at the same classification level.
9. Under 32 C.F.R. § 159a.9, Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) refers to
information and material that requires special controls for restricted handling.
10. During her employment at DIA, MONTES has continuously held a security clearance and
has had regular, authorized access to classified information. I know that a person who receives such
clearances is required to be briefed on the procedures for properly handling classified information
and the penalties for failing to do so, and that such a person must sign certifications of understanding
and agreement in connection with those briefings. I have reviewed a “Classified Information
Nondisclosure Agreement” (Standard Form 189) that MONTES signed on September 30, 1985. In
that document MONTES acknowledged that she was aware that unauthorized disclosure of classified
information could cause irreparable injury to the United States or could be used to advantage by a
foreign nation, that she would never divulge such information to an unauthorized person, and that
she understood that she was obligated to comply with laws and regulations that prohibit the
unauthorized disclosure of classified information, and that she further understood such a disclosure
could constitute a violation of United States criminal law including 18 U.S.C. § 794. I have also
reviewed a “Security Briefing/Debriefing Acknowledgment” form signed by MONTES on May 15,
1997, briefing her into a Special Access Program (SAP). On this date, specifically in connection
with this SAP, MONTES signed a Sensitive Compartmented Information Nondisclosure Agreement,
in which she acknowledged that the unauthorized disclosure of SCI may violate federal criminal law,
including 18 U.S.C. § 794, and that such disclosure could cause irreparable injury to the United
States or be used to the advantage of a foreign nation.
-5-
II. MONTES's Toshiba Laptop Computer and Shortwave Radio
A. Communication From the Cuban Intelligence Service (CuIS) to MONTES via
Shortwave Radio
11. Based on my knowledge and familiarity with the methodology of the Cuban intelligence
service, I am aware that the CuIS often communicates with clandestine CuIS agents operating
outside Cuba by broadcasting encrypted messages at certain high frequencies. Under this method,
the CuIS broadcasts on a particular frequency a series of numbers. The clandestine agent,
monitoring the message on a shortwave radio, keys in the numbers onto a computer and then uses
a diskette containing a decryption program to convert the seemingly random series of numbers into
Spanish-language text. This was the methodology employed by some of the defendants convicted
last June in the Southern District of Florida of espionage on behalf of Cuba and acting as
unregistered agents of Cuba, in the case of United States of America v. Gerardo Hernandez, et al.,
Cr. No. 98-721-CR-Lenard(s)(s). Although it is very difficult to decrypt a message without access
to the relevant decryption program, once decrypted on the agent's computer the decrypted message
resides on the computer's hard drive unless the agent takes careful steps to cleanse the hard drive of
the message. Simply "deleting" the file is not sufficient.
12. Based on the evidence described below, I have concluded that MONTES was a
clandestine CuIS agent who communicated with her handling CuIS officer in the manner described
above.
13. A receipt obtained from a CompUSA store located in Alexandria, Virginia indicated that
on October 5, 1996, one "Ana B. Montes" purchased a refurbished Toshiba laptop computer, model
405CS, serial number 10568512.
-6-
14. During a court-authorized surreptitious entry into MONTES's residence, conducted by
the FBI on May 25, 2001, FBI agents observed in her residence a Toshiba laptop computer with the
serial number set out above. During the search, the agents electronically copied the laptop’s hard
drive. During subsequent analysis of the copied hard drive, the FBI recovered substantial text that
had been deleted from the laptop's hard drive.
15. The recovered text from the laptop's hard drive included significant portions of a Spanishlanguage
message, which when printed out with standard font comes to approximately 11 pages of
text. The recovered portion of the message does not expressly indicate when it was composed.
However, it instructs the message recipient to travel to "the Friendship Heights station" on "Saturday,
November 23rd." My review of a calendar indicates that November 23 fell on a Saturday in 1996;
the next time thereafter November 23 falls on a Saturday is in 2002. Accordingly, this message was
composed sometime before November 23, 1996, and entered onto MONTES's laptop sometime after
October 5, 1996, the date she purchased it. Based on its content, I have concluded that it is a
message from a CuIS officer to MONTES.
16. Portions of the recovered message included the following: “You should go to the WIPE
program and destroy that file according to the steps which we discussed during the contact. This is
a basic step to take every time you receive a radio message or some disk.”
17. During this same search, the agents also observed a Sony shortwave radio stored in a
previously opened box on the floor of the bedroom. The agents turned on the radio to confirm that
it was operable. Also found was an earpiece that could be utilized with this shortwave radio,
allowing the radio to be listened to more privately. Similar earpieces were found in the residences
of the defendants in the Hernandez case, as described above in paragraph 11.
-7-
18. The recovered portion of the message begins with the following passage:
Nevertheless, I learned that you entered the code communicating that
you were having problems with radio reception. The code alone
covers a lot, meaning that we do not know specifically what types of
difficulty you are having. Given that it's only been a few days since
we began the use of new systems, let's not rule out that the problem
might be related to them. In that case, I'm going to repeat the
necessary steps to take in order to retrieve a message.
The message then describes how the person reading the message should "write the information you
send to us and the numbers of the radio messages which you receive." The message later refers to
going "to a new line when you get to the group 10 of the numbers that you receive via radio," and
still later gives as an "example" a series of groups of numbers: "22333 44444 77645 77647 90909
13425 76490 78399 7865498534." After some further instruction, the message states: "Here the
program deciphers the message and it retrieves the text onto the screen, asking you if the text is okay
or not." Near the conclusion of the message, there is the statement "In this shipment you will receive
the following disks: . . . 2) Disk "R1" to decipher our mailings and radio."
19. Further analysis of MONTES's copied Toshiba hard drive identified text consisting of
a series of 150 5-number groups. The text begins, "30107 24624," and continues until 150 such
groups are listed. The FBI has determined that the precise same numbers, in the precise same order,
were broadcast on February 6, 1999, at AM frequency 7887 kHz, by a woman speaking Spanish,
who introduced the broadcast with the words "Attencion! Attencion!" The frequency used in that
February 1999 broadcast is within the frequency range of the shortwave radio observed in
MONTES's residence on May 25, 2001.
B. Communication Between the CuIS and MONTES via Computer Diskette
-8-
20. Based on my knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, I am aware that a
clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by typing a
message onto a computer, and then encrypting and saving it to a diskette. The agent thereafter
physically delivers the diskette, either directly or indirectly, to the officer. In addition, as an
alternative to sending an encrypted shortwave radio broadcast, a CuIS officer often will similarly
place an encrypted message onto a diskette and again simply physically deliver the diskette,
clandestinely, to the agent. Upon receipt of the encrypted message, either by the CuIS officer or the
agent, the recipient employs a decryption program contained on a separate diskette to decrypt the
message. The exchange of diskettes containing encrypted messages, and the use of decryption
programs contained on separate diskettes, was one of the clandestine communication techniques
utilized by the defendants in the Hernandez case described above in paragraph 11. Although it is
difficult to decrypt a message without the decryption program, the very process of encrypting or
decrypting a message on a computer causes a decrypted copy of the message to be placed on the
computer's hard drive. Unless affirmative steps are taken to cleanse the hard drive, beyond simply
"deleting" the message, the message can be retrieved from the hard drive.
21. Based on the evidence described below, I have concluded that MONTES was a CuIS
agent who communicated with her CuIS handling officer by passing and receiving computer
diskettes containing encrypted messages.
22. The message described above that was contained on the hard drive of MONTES's laptop
computer contained the following passage:
Continue writing along the same lines you have so far, but cipher the
information every time you do, so that you do not leave prepared
information that is not ciphered in the house. This is the most
-9-
sensitive and compromising information that you hold. We realize
that this entails the difficulty of not being able to revise or consult
what was written previously before each shipment, but we think it is
worth taking this provisional measure. It is not a problem for us if
some intelligence element comes repeated or with another defect
which obviously cannot help, we understand this perfectly.-- Give
“E” only the ciphered disks. Do not give, for the time being, printed
or photographed material. Keep the materials which you can justify
keeping until we agree that you can deliver them.-- Keep up the
measure of formatting the disks we send you with couriers or letters
as soon as possible, leaving conventional notes as reminders only of
those things to reply to or report.
The message goes on to refer to a "shipment" that contains "Disk 'S1' - to cipher the information you
send," and, as indicated in the previous section, to "Disk 'R1' to decipher our mailings and radio."
Earlier in the message, there is a reference to "information you receive either via radio or disk."
23. During the court-authorized search of the residence on May 25, 2001, two boxes
containing a total of 16 diskettes were observed. During a subsequent such search on August 8,
2001, a box containing 41 diskettes, later determined to be blank, were observed. Finally, records
obtained from a Radio Shack store located near MONTES's residence indicate that MONTES
purchased 160 floppy diskettes during the period May 1, 1993, to November 2, 1997.
III. Communication from MONTES to the CuIS by Pager
24. Based on my knowledge of the methodology employed by the CuIS, I am aware that a
clandestine CuIS agent often communicates with his or her handling CuIS officer by making calls
to a pager number from a pay telephone booth and entering a pre-assigned code to convey a
particular message. This methodology was utilized by the defendants in the Hernandez case
described above in paragraph 11.
-10-
25. Based on the evidence described below, I believe that MONTES has been communicating
with her handling CuIS officer in this fashion.
26. In the same message copied from MONTES's hard drive that has been described earlier
in this affidavit, there is a passage that states:
C) Beepers that you have. The only beepers in use at present are the
following: 1) (917) [first seven-digit telephone number omitted from
this application], use it with identification code 635. 2) (917) [second
seven-digit telephone number omitted from this application]. Use it
with identification code 937. 3) (917) [third seven-digit telephone
number omitted from this application] Use it only with identification
code 2900 . . . because this beeper is public, in other words it is
known to belong to the Cuban Mission at the UN and we assume
there is some control over it. You may use this beeper only in the
event you cannot communicate with those mentioned in 1) and 2),
which are secure.
Based on my experience and knowledge, I have concluded that the reference to “control over it” in
the above passage refers to the CuIS officer’s suspicion that the FBI is aware that this beeper number
is associated with the Cuban government and is monitoring it in some fashion.
27. In addition, as described previously, the message on the laptop's hard drive includes a
portion stating that the message recipient "entered the code communicating that you were having
problems with radio reception." Based on the evidence described above, I have concluded this
portion of the message indicates that MONTES at some point shortly prior to receiving the message
sent a page to her CuIS officer handler consisting of a pre-assigned series of numbers to indicate she
was having communication problems.
28. Based on evidence obtained during the FBI's physical surveillance of MONTES
conducted between May and September 2001, I have concluded that MONTES continues to send
coded pages to the CuIS. This evidence is described below in paragraphs 38 to 45.
-11-
III. MONTES's Transmission of Classified Information to the CuIS
29. The same message described above, as well as other messages recovered from the laptop's
hard drive, contained the following information indicating that MONTES had been tasked to provide
and did provide classified information to the CuIS.
30. In one portion of the message discussed above, the CuIS officer states:
What *** said during the meeting . . . was very interesting. Surely
you remember well his plans and expectations when he was coming
here. If I remember right, on that occasion, we told you how
tremendously useful the information you gave us from the meetings
with him resulted, and how we were waiting here for him with open
arms.
31. I have replaced in this application with "***" a word that begins with a capital letter,
which was not translated, and is in fact the true last name of a U.S. intelligence officer who was
present in an undercover capacity, in Cuba, during a period that began prior to October 1996. The
above quoted portion of the message indicates that MONTES disclosed the U.S. officer's intelligence
agency affiliation and anticipated presence in Cuba to the CuIS, which information is classified
"Secret." As a result, the Cuban government was able to direct its counter-intelligence resources
against the U.S. officer ("we were waiting here for him with open arms").
32. The very next section in the message states:
We think the opportunity you will have to participate in the ACOM
exercise in December is very good. Practically, everything that takes
place there will be of intelligence value. Let's see if it deals with
contingency plans and specific targets in Cuba, which are to
prioritized interests for us.
33. I have concluded that the "ACOM exercise in December" is a reference to a Decem