PUERTO PADRE, Cuba.- A former CIA officer told me this anecdote in Florida, when I was looking for information for a novel. The Cuban Intelligence Directorate, in the early 1990s, conducted an operational exploration in a certain cemetery in the United States, according to some, in Cameron County, Texas. There they searched until they found a grave with the information they needed, essentially, the name and surname of a person whose birth was contemporary with that of one of their agents, who, with an assumed American identity, they planned to introduce into Miami.
The deceased chosen, for whom a death certificate was obtained and shortly after a birth certificate, was a child of Latino parents, born in the United States in 1967, who died perhaps three years later from an illness, if I remember correctly, of respiratory origin.
From this preliminary information, the officers made an operational model, and as if the child had not died, they followed his steps through the places where he must have lived and the schools where he must have studied, digging into the names and surnames of teachers and even janitors, in a legend created in such a way that, if someone tried to find out the name of a person, a company, a street, or the number of a building or a telephone, they would undoubtedly turn out to be true.
Constructing this legend and the measures that gave security to the legend itself, which we have narrated as a mere example, entailed covert investigations, time and a lot of money for the Cuban intelligence agencies, and only deducting travel expenses; in the same way that, for the person who prepared this illegal identity, memorizing so many names of people, places or situations, involved a lot of effort.
Identity of the dead
But this conscientious dedication to “reviving” a dead person is not unusual, since the impersonation of a deceased person by a living person is a reliable procedure for those who, in pursuit of a criminal or operational purpose, leave few traces behind. This procedure is not unique, and neither is it unique in its words and actions, since there are also cases of living people who, already living far from their environment, whether in the United States or Russia, in order to close their past officially or unofficially, circulate information about their “death.”
And it must be said that in a certain way, even civil laws collaborate with this mortuary or quasi-funerary deception, since, according to old precepts, if after more than a year the whereabouts of someone are not known, this person can be declared absent; just as, after three years have passed and there is no news of him, even without having been declared absent, a person can be declared presumed dead.
Budding spy?
And I bring these intricacies that, without distinction, travel equally in the toolboxes of circumspect operational officers with diplomatic facades, of their agents and of other mobsters –not from the State but private, although almost always in complicity with some mafia State–, because a few days ago –and forgive us for not mentioning his name at this moment– we learned of the death? of an individual dedicated to these tasks of showing himself to be adept at pretending to be who he is not.
And then, the signs will have to be observed in case this person turns out to be a living person with the identity of a dead person, or a living person pretending to be dead; which is perfectly possible, because from these “remains”, that of a budding spy, a vulture or a falcon will rise. These two species live off death, but as is well known, birds of prey feed on putrefied meat while birds of prey go hunting.
Forgive my circumspection. This note is more than journalistic notes, it is a parable of public utility and not only for readers because it reminds them that we live in a dangerous region, where without reaching paranoia, we must keep closed the doors that should not be open. It is also, and most importantly, a curve, yes, an arc with an arrow for those who make their work enigmas and almost always in bad faith. Then… as the saying goes, “to whom the cape fits, let him wear it.”
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2024-07-06 13:07:10
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