Ana Montes

Former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, 65, freed after being found guilty of espionage in 2002.

She was sentenced to 25 years in prison at the age of 45. “I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it,” she said. She was accused of supplying the identity of four US spies to Cuba, as well as other classified information.

Last week, Ana Montes, a former analyst for the US Defense Intelligence Agency, walked out of a Texas high-security prison where she spent 20 years.

Montes was arrested, and her stoic appearence during the arrests baffled everyone. Montes was opposed to the Reagan Administration's activities in Latin America. Bush, told Congress in 2012 that Montes was "one of the most damaging spies the United States has ever found." According to senior US official, she was recruited by Cuba between 1979 and 1985 while working in the Freedom of Information office at the Justice Department. Over the years, she revealed the identities of the United States' undercover intelligence officers and a mammoth amount of classified material, including secrets so sensitive that couldn't be described publicly. Montes was a senior Cuba analyst at the U.S.

The 65-year-old spent almost two decades spying for Cuba while employed as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

She was finally detained in September 2001 after US intelligence officials received a tip that a government employee seemed to be spying for Cuba. She was handed a 25-year prison sentence, with the sentencing judge accusing her of putting the “nation as a whole” at risk. After her arrest in 2001, officials said she had almost entirely exposed US intelligence operations on the island.

Ana Montes, an ex-US defence intelligence analyst who turned out to be one of the most “damaging cold war spies” has been freed from US Prison after 20 ...

According to the FBI, her downfall started in 1996, when one of her DIA colleagues suspected her involvement with Cuban intelligence. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Montes was released from Federal Prison located in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday. According to CNN, in 1984, Montes was working a clerical job at the Justice Department in Washington. After she agreed to help the “Cuban officials”, in 1985, she applied at DIA, which is a key producer of intelligence for the Pentagon. The infamous spy was against the Reagan administration’s decision to support rebel groups fighting pro-communist regimes in Central America. Ana Montes was born to Puerto Rican parents in 1957 when the Cold War was at its peak.

Ana Belen Montes was considered a top analyst on the Cuban military.

Court records said she provided documents that revealed details about U.S. She began working for the Defense Intelligence Agency starting in 1985, and was considered a top analyst on the Cuban military. U.S.

Montes, known as the "Queen of Cuba," was the top Cuba analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency. She spent over 20 years in prison for espionage.

Urbina ruled in 2002](https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.17663/gov.uscourts.dcd.17663.53.0.pdf) that upon her release, Montes should be placed under supervision for five years, during which time her internet and computer usage will be monitored and unpermitted contact with foreign governments forbidden. [Senior Cuban officials publicly praised Montes](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/11/30/ana-montes-robert-hanssen-spy/?itid=lk_inline_manual_20) after she was caught by the FBI, portraying her as an ideological ally. She’d go home, maybe work out, and she lived in a condo in Cleveland Park on Macomb Street and thus begins her night job, which was typing that classified information into her Toshiba laptop,” Popkin said. Montes was interviewed by a security official, but no action was taken, the FBI said. “She was just a very efficient spy, quiet, kind of unassuming and devastating to U.S. Federal agents obtained court approval in 2001 to enter Montes’s apartment, where they discovered a shortwave radio, an earpiece and a laptop. [According to the FBI](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/23/analyst-charged-with-spying-for-cuba/b7fecf63-6b49-436e-b0ce-e6c2542c9986/?itid=lk_inline_manual_25&itid=lk_inline_manual_22), Montes communicated with her Cuban handlers via shortwave radios, computer diskettes and pagers, The Post reported in 2001. “I believe our government’s policy toward Cuba is cruel and unfair, profoundly unneighborly, and I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system upon it,” she said. So the Cubans were well aware of everything that we knew about them and could use that to their advantage,” Van Cleave added. Montes accessed sensitive information in her role as a senior analyst for Cuban affairs at the DIA, the agency responsible for providing military intelligence about foreign countries, where she had worked since 1985. officers covertly operating in Cuba, provided classified photographs and documents, and alerted Cuban authorities that the United States was monitoring several of its military installations, Within seven years, she had been promoted as the agency’s top official working on Cuba and was responsible for sharing secret U.S.

Montes was highly regarded for her expertise on Cuba. But under the radar, she shared classified information with the Cuban government, including the ...

[biography ](https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/ana-montes-cuba-spy)of Montes, she was openly critical of the U.S. Montes became one of the DIA's top aides on Cuba, the FBI said. Eventually, in 1996, one co-worker raised the alarm about Montes to a security official who then interviewed her. Her disapproval eventually caught the attention of Cuban operatives who recruited her to the Cuban Intelligence Service. Montes began working for the U.S. Among the secrets she gave to the Cuban government were the identities of four U.S.

Ana Montes, the Defense Intelligence Agency's top Cuba analyst, spied for Cuba until her arrest in 2001.

and none of them were aware of her espionage at the time nor supported her position. As Montes climbed the career ladder and received a number of accolades for her work, the FBI got a tip about a U.S. By the end of 1985 she was working at the U.S. But he doesn't expect her to put her newfound freedom in jeopardy by trying to get in contact with the Cubans. She was arrested days after the Sept. Montes was recruited by Cuban intelligence in 1984, when she was approached by a fellow student at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University after she expressed her outrage about U.S. The student was an access agent — someone who recruits spies — and introduced her to a Cuban intelligence official under the guise that they needed Spanish language news articles about Nicaragua translated into English. She encouraged those interested in her to instead focus on the problems facing Puerto Ricans and the United States' economic embargo on Cuba. support of the Nicaragua Contras, according to "So the Cubans were well aware of everything that we knew about them and could use that to their advantage. Her spying took place around the same time that Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames spied for the Soviet and Russian intelligence services while they worked for the FBI and CIA, respectively. By day, she was the Defense Intelligence Agency's senior Cuba analyst.

A former U.S. defense intelligence agency analyst convicted of spying for Cuba was released from federal prison on Friday, prison officials confirmed with ...

"She served her time and [is] free. "There's a large community [in Puerto Rico] who consider her to be a hero and, in some cases, a martyr." She had been scheduled for release on Sunday.