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Ex-official a Cuba spy, paper says

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From Times Staff and Wire Reports

Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican foreign secretary under President Vicente Fox, allegedly served as an agent for Cuba’s intelligence service for at least three years starting in the late 1970s, the Mexico City daily El Universal reported.

Documents kept in Mexico’s national archive show that Castaneda, then in his mid-20s, was recruited as a spy by the head of Cuba’s intelligence operations in Mexico. Castaneda was supposed to pass information to Cuba and to assist political exiles from Guatemala, Chile and El Salvador in Mexico, the newspaper reported.

The paper said Castaneda also had bullied his father, Mexico’s then-Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda y Alvarez de la Rosa, to support policies that would benefit Cuba.

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Castaneda could not be reached for comment.

Castaneda, a former communist, broke with Cuba in 1984. Years later, as foreign minister, he presided over a period of escalating tensions between Cuba and Mexico.

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