Cuban Spies Arrested in Florida

(Miami, Florida) A husband and wife spy team affiliated with Florida International University (FIU) was arrested last Friday and accused of operating as covert agents for the communist Cuban government for decades. FIU professor Carlos M. Alvarez, 61, and his wife, FIU counselor Elsa Alvarez, 55, were charged with failing to register as foreign agents and were remanded to custody after being denied bond by U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrea Simonton.

From Miami.com:

Simonton said she believed that the gravity of the charges -- admitted by the couple last summer to the FBI -- their past academic trips to Cuba and their contacts in Fidel Castro's government made them a flight risk if allowed to return to their South Miami home.

"As a practical matter, these are people who admitted they were spying," Simonton said. "They would indeed return to Cuba, rather than face the consequences of their actions here."

According to prosecutors, the Carlos and Elsa Alvarez transmitted information about Miami's Cuban-exile community to communist handlers via high-tech and low-tech means, including a short-wave radio and a backyard antenna. Notably, the couple were apparently quite effective at espionage since they were awarded commendations by the Cuban communists in the 1990s.

The Alvarezes are jailed at the Miami Federal Detention Center and a January 19 arraignment date has been scheduled. Conviction for failing to register as a foreign agent carries a seven- to ten-year prison term.

In my opinion, federal agencies cannot possibly be overzealous in the prosecution of communist spies, but it should be their duty to try.