A world-renowned Mexican scientist pleads guilty of spying on the U.S for the Russian government.
The Scientist was identified as 36-year old Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, a Mexican national.
The Department of Justice revealed that Fuentes acted within the United States on behalf of Russia without notifying the U.S. Attorney General which is required by the Federal Law.
Mexican scientist pleads guilty to spying on US for Russia https://t.co/7xZ4lEPoux
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 17, 2022
Court documents also revealed that Fuentes was working with someone whom he believed was a Russian government official and reportedly instructed him to “arrange for an intermediary to lease a residential building in Miami.” According to the DOJ, a U.S. government source had given information about Russia to the U.S. government residing at this location.
The department also added that in 2020, Fuentes traveled to Miami, aiming to “obtain this individual’s license plate number and parking location which he passed on to the Russian official upon his next trip to Russia.”
However, Fuentes and his wife were stopped by the investigators at the Miami airport in February 2020 when they also found a recently deleted photo of the license plate on his “wife’s phone as they attempted to flee back to Mexico.”
Fuentes is a world-renowned biologist who studied in Russia and lived in Singapore. His sentencing is scheduled to start on May 17 in Miami in front of U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks.
