Cuban Spies Set Off Post-9/11 "Wild Goose Chase"

In an interview with El Nuevo Heraldo, two former government officials said that in the six months following 9/11, Cuban spies set the intelligence community off on a "wild goose chase" by walking into U.S. embassies around the world and providing employees with false information about terrorist threats. These decoy spies, who are known as "walk-ins," generally take about 20 hours to train and 100 hours to investigate, making them a cheap and easy way to drain U.S. intelligence resources. According to the Miami Herald, Castro usually deploys around 12 spies a year to provide false information to the U.S.—the gadfly approach to advancing the revolution—although in troubled times, this number can jump to 20 or 25. All the walk-ins were eventually discredited, although only after being examined by embassy officials who "don't have the expertise to wave the BS flag."

Read original story in Miami Herald | Monday, Oct. 19, 2009