According to the Justice Department’s announcement on Wednesday, a federal judge in Florida sentenced a Mexican man to four years and one day in prison for espionage against Russia in the country.
Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, 36, was sentenced on Tuesday after entering a guilty plea in February to operating without the attorney general’s knowledge on behalf of a foreign government.
According to a statement from the Justice Department, Fuentes was assigned a mission by the Russian government to spy on a person within the country who had previously provided Washington with information regarding the Russian government.
According to the prosecution, Fuentes, who has spent a lot of time in Russia, was hired by Moscow in 2019 and given the order to rent a room in a certain apartment complex in Miami-Dade County, where the American target lived.
Additionally, he was told to identify the target’s car’s licence plate number and parking spot and give it to his handler when he got back to Russia.
An earlier statement from the Justice Department said that on February 14, 2020, a third party who has been identified as Fuentes’ legal spouse in Mexico snapped a close-up picture of the target’s car.
They claimed that they found the image had been provided to Fuentes over a WhatsApp message after looking through his phone.
According to the prosecution, Fuentes later admitted to law enforcement officers that he had received the operation’s instructions from a Russian government official.
The Justice Department claimed that Fuentes’ actions in this case and the way he interacted with Russian officials “are consistent with the strategies of the Russian intelligence services for recognising, analysing, recruiting and handling intelligence assets and sources.”
Prosecutors claim that on February 16, as the pair arrived at Miami International Airport on their way to Mexico City, U.S. Customs and Border Protection searched the phone of Fuentes’ travelling companion and discovered the target’s car image in a recently deleted folder.
They added that after checking Fuentes’ phone, they discovered the image had been sent to him via a WhatsApp message.
Prosecutors claim that Fuentes then confessed to law enforcement officials that he had received instructions from a Russian government official to carry out the operation.
According to an earlier announcement from the Justice Department, a third party who has been identified as Fuentes’ legal spouse in Mexico took a close-up image of the target’s car on February 14, 2020.
The Russian intelligence services’ methods for identifying, analysing, recruiting, and managing intelligence assets and sources, according to the Justice Department, are consistent with Fuentes’ conduct in this case and how he dealt with Russian officials.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection allegedly checked Fuentes’ travelling companion’s phone on February 16 when the two arrived at Miami International Airport on their way to Mexico City and found the target’s automobile image in a recently deleted folder.
They claimed that they found the image had been provided to Fuentes over a WhatsApp message after looking through his phone.
