ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 21

March 2004
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

ENIGMA 2000 article - Fidel's Pentagon pal - An examination of the case of Miss Ana Belen Montes

This time we take a look at the American case of Ana Belen Montes; an important case for us as number stations were mentioned in the FBI’s affidavit against Ms Montes……..

By Juan Fernandez.

The men who run the Pentagon were still reeling from having their HQ on the Potomac trashed by hijackers on 11th September, 2001 when they had to suffer a further humiliation. On 20th September, 2001 Miss Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency [DIA], was arrested for spying for Cuba.

She was in charge of Cuban analysis at the DIA and was the highest ranking US government official to have been found working as an agent for Cuban Intelligence, the DGI.

Of particular interest was the fact that she was controlled by numbers....

Miss Montes was 44 years old at the time of her arrest and worked for DIA at the Bolling Air Force Base near Washington. She was born on a US military facility in Germany and was of Puerto Rican descent.

The DIA exists to analyse military intelligence for the Pentagon, assist in planning and to study countries, equipment and tactics.

Miss Montes who was a fluent Spanish speaker joined the DIA in 1985 and originally studied Nicaragua, then moving to the Cuban desk in 1992. She rose to be the DIA's lead analyst on Cuba and with her degrees from the University of Virginia and the John Hopkins University, was someone who was thought to be 'going places.'

She had been selected to undertake a study in Cuba by the Pentagon and did time at the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence. As one colleague said, "She was the person to go to on Cuba when a briefing was needed."

For reasons that are still unclear she fell under the suspicion of being an agent of Cuban Intelligence and had been under surveillance for four months before her arrest.

US Intelligence may have been tipped off by a source in Cuba or perhaps it was because of the FBI's investigation of the Cuban Wasp spy network in Florida a short time before.

Whatever the reason the FBI made a covert search of her flat in Washington and made some interesting finds. The affidavit submitted by the FBI yields some very interesting information.

The FBI acknowledged that Cuban intelligence often communicates with its clandestine agents by broadcasting 'encrypted messages at certain high frequencies.' The agent monitors these broadcasts and then keys the numbers into a computer and uses a computer diskette that contains a 'decrypt program' to convert the message into a Spanish language text.

The FBI testified that it was 'very difficult' to decrypt the message without a decryption program. Once the message has been decrypted, it remains on the computer's hard drive even after deletion. In 1996 Montes purchased a Toshiba laptop and the contents of the hard drive were electronically copied by the FBI during a covert search on 25th May 2001. One Spanish language text was a message that was eleven pages in length and contained instructions on how to get to a clandestine meeting in Washington. There was also Secret and Top Secret information from the DIA on the laptop that had been loaded onto disks and passed to DGI agents at meetings in the Washington area.

During the clandestine search the FBI noticed a Sony Shortwave receiver with an earpiece attached and which was similar to those used during the Wasp case in Florida. This was used to receive clandestine messages and a message of 150 groups of 5 digit Spanish numbers was found on the Toshiba computer.

The precise numbers and order of the groups was checked by the FBI and in the affidavit it states that this message was broadcast on 6th February, 1999 on 7887kHz by a Spanish-speaking female. It also noted that 'Attencion" was used twice! This is a stunning admission by the FBI and shows that the government does monitor, record and analyse these stations.

It is also the first time that I have seen a precise frequency for a numbers station mentioned in a official document as well as stating who is behind the V02 broadcasts.

In addition to the numbers station, the DGI also communicated with Montes using encrypted diskettes. Written reports would be passed by her on a floppy to an agent, but items like papers, photos and similar items unsuitable for typing would be stored in her home until it could be handed over at a meeting. The DGI advised that it would need to be hidden in storage because it was sensitive and compromising material. On one disk were the instructions to decrypt a numbers broadcast and the message had toe typed in ten group blocks and then the eleventh group went in a new block. Little detail of the crypto has been made public but this 'new' IT based system was having teething problems at this time.

Montes also used pagers to communicate with the DGI. After practising counter surveillance she would go to a public telephone box and dial a number held by a diplomat in the Cuban Mission to the UN. The DGI knew that their pagers were monitored so Montes would type in a three-digit code to relay a message. These codes indicated meeting places and other arrangements. On one occasion it was used to indicate that a radio broadcast had not been properly decoded. This pager system was her downfall because during surveillance she was seen making these calls and the numbers dialed from the phones were monitored later and the recipient identified. After her arrest the decode for the pagers was found in her notebook and four Cuban diplomats were expelled from the US.

The information she passed to Cuba covered sensitive intelligence sources and operations as well as information on weapons, bases and exercises. At least four human sources were compromised but no-one was killed. She identified a military intelligence agent who was being sent undercover to Cuba and in a numbers broadcast the DGI told her that they were waiting for him "With open arms."

She passed Secret and Top Secret data as well as details of a 'Special Access Programme' concerning an ultra sensitive intelligence collection method which only two people in her office had been informed of. This was so sensitive that the FBI would not state what it was called or release any details about it. It was said by colleagues that she saw everything that the DIA had on Cuba and was well informed about all sources and methods used against Havana and was indeed called 'Miss Cuba at DIA'. As she pleaded guilty, little information has emerged about what she did but the damage was described by sources as 'very serious'.

Her arrest was overshadowed by 9/11 and aftermath so it received little publicity. She was also arrested at this time because it was feared that DIA information concerning US activity post 9/11 would be given by her to Cuba and then sent to other hostile nations, particularly in the Middle East.

Her reasons for being a traitor appear to have been ideological as she only received expenses for her espionage. At her sentencing she stated that she sought to 'counter a great injustice' in the way she thought the US treated Cuba.

She felt that both states should work together in 'tolerance and respect' as 'all the world is one country.'

She seems to have had an idealistic view of the Castro regime and deep sympathy for Cuba and the Cuban people. This did not impress the Judge who thought that if she could not love the USA then she should not have worked against it and gave her 25 years in jail so long as she cooperated with the FBI in the debriefs.

The Cuban government later expressed its 'profound respect and admiration' for her.

Montes appears to have been spying for 16 years following her 'moral outrage of US policy toward the impoverished island nation.' It is possible that the DGI recruited her and then got her to infiltrate the DIA. Colleagues noted that 'she was not a warm person' and was 'always scowling.'

It is important to note that agents like Montes do not just reveal secrets but can also influence or formulate policy. In recent years the US has softened its line on Cuba and no longer sees it as a military threat but this may reflect the influence of Montes. She attended and gave many high level briefs for members of Congress and at academic Think Tanks in the Washington area. US policy may now need to be reviewed as the DGI had a secret insider at the DIA.

It is also interesting to note that men are not the only spies; Russia is not the only espionage threat and not all agents do it for money.

Whenever I listen to V02 or any number station I often wonder who they are, where they are and what they are? I speculate on what they are learning, whom do they pass it to and what does the country do with the information? The numbers are not as innocuous as they sound but have serious implications for sates and individuals. They are an ENIGMA. [Thanks for this most interesting insight to the Montes case, Juan].