Mariano Faget Jr.

Not to be confused with Mariano Faget Diaz, his father, who in 1961 was also involved in a scandal while employed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami.
Mariano Faget
Supervisory District Administration Officer at Immigration and Naturalization Service
Termination2000
Personal details
BornJuly 2, 1945
Havana
Died?
SpouseMaria Faget
Parents
Alma materDade County Junior College
Military service
Branch/serviceUnited States Army Reserve

Mariano Faget is a naturalized American citizen and was an employee of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in Miami for over 35 years, notable for becoming at the time one of the highest-ranking Cuban-Americans at INS, and a District Supervisory Officer of the agency.[1][2] Faget is the first INS official ever charged with espionage charges against the United States.[3]

One month before his scheduled retirement from the INS, he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on espionage charges, accused of selling information on the movements of Cuban exiles to the communist government of Cuba in exchange for business favors when the Cuba-America trade embargo would inevitably be lifted.[4][5][6] Faget denied these charges but was found guilty on all four counts. It was revealed that he had been fed false information by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a complex sting operation that lasted over a year, called "Operation False Blue."[7][2] He was sentenced by US District Judge Alan Stephen Gold to a 5-year prison term.[8]

This was found ironic by the Cuban exile community in Little Havana because his father, Mariano Faget Diaz, had a reputation as one of the most brutal anti-Castro and anti-Communist police officers in the Batista regime, accused of torturing and murdering those he suspected of having communist affiliations.[9]

Journalist Alfonso Chardy at the Miami Herald wrote: "Accused Cuban spy Mariano Faget Jr. has lived a life filled with ironies."[10]

  1. ^ The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/us/senior-pentagon-analyst-is-charged-as-cuban-spy.html. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ^ a b "News from the Washington File". irp.fas.org. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
  3. ^ "FBI Sting at INS Found an Unlikely Cuban Spy Suspect". www.latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved 2024-09-26.
  4. ^ "INS official gets 5 years in spy sting". www.latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
  5. ^ "Accused Cuban Spy Pleads Not Guilty - CBS News". www.cbsnews.com. 2000-03-06. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
  6. ^ "BBC News | AMERICAS | US expels Cuban diplomat". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
  7. ^ "CNN.com - Timeline: High-profile U.S. spy cases of last two decades - August 24, 2001". www.cnn.com. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
  8. ^ Rafalko, Frank J. (October 5, 2004). "Volume 4: American Revolution into the New Millenium". Counterintelligence Reader. pp. 232–235.
  9. ^ "Faget's father was a brutal Batista official". www.latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved 2024-09-25.
  10. ^ "Faget: 'Spy' talk was only business". www.latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved 2024-09-25.