Inside the Federal Probe of U.S. Nonprofits Accused of Running Cuba's Influence Campaign on American Soil

The Justice Department and Treasury Department are running a multi-agency investigation into U.S. nonprofit organizations and activist leaders accused of coordinating with the Cuban government on an influence campaign operating inside the United States. Federal investigators say they have identified 145 nonprofits, labor groups, and advocacy organizations mobilizing in support of Cuba's Communist Party, with combined annual revenue of roughly $1 billion [1]. The probe marks a significant escalation in the U.S. government's use of foreign-influence statutes against domestic civil society — and has triggered a fierce debate over where lawful advocacy ends and illegal foreign-agent activity begins.

The Investigation: Scope and Legal Architecture

The investigation is led by a prosecution working group based in the U.S. Attorney's office in Miami, staffed by representatives from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Homeland Security Investigations, and Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) [2]. The effort has been running since at least mid-February 2026.

Investigators are examining whether certain organizations and activists coordinated lobbying, messaging, delegations, fundraising, and political organizing efforts with Cuban government officials without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) — a 1938 law that requires individuals acting as agents of foreign governments in a political capacity to disclose that relationship to the Justice Department [1][3].

The legal statutes in play carry different burdens of proof and penalties. FARA violations can result in up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000. OFAC sanctions violations under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) carry penalties of up to 20 years' imprisonment. Espionage charges under 18 U.S.C. § 951, which criminalizes acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, can bring up to ten years [3][4].

Specific individuals named in reporting on the probe include Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink; Olivia DiNucci, CodePink's D.C. coordinator; Manolo De Los Santos, executive director of the People's Forum; Vijay Prashad, executive director of Tricontinental; and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker [1]. Investigators are also examining the role of Neville Roy Singham, an American technology executive residing in Shanghai who has funneled approximately $278 million into a broad network of activist nonprofits since 2017 [5][6].

The Singham Network and Financial Flows

The financial architecture of the alleged influence network centers on Singham, who congressional investigators say has distributed funds through a coordinated system of nonprofits including the People's Forum, the ANSWER Coalition, CodePink, and BreakThrough News [6][7].

The People's Forum alone received over $20 million from Singham, funneled through shell companies and donor-advised funds [5]. CodePink, co-founded by Singham's wife Jodie Evans, received $1.33 million from the network [1]. The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing in February 2026 titled "Foreign Influence in American Non-profits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond," where witnesses testified that approximately $2.7 billion in foreign money flows through the U.S. nonprofit sector and that Singham's network used social media amplification to create artificial protest movements coordinated with foreign government interests [7].

Investigators are scrutinizing whether organizations used intermediary nonprofits, fiscally sponsored projects, or generic donation language to obscure Cuba-related transactions that could have triggered OFAC compliance review. One organization allegedly instructed donors: "Please do not write 'Cuba' in donation comments" [1].

The congressional hearing also exposed structural vulnerabilities in nonprofit oversight: forensic accountant Bruce Dubinsky testified that the IRS Form 990 disclosure requirements "need to be designed in a way that information can be easily used" and should include questions about fiscal sponsorships and beneficial ownership [7].

Cuba's Espionage History: Context for the Current Probe

The investigation unfolds against decades of documented Cuban intelligence operations on U.S. soil. Cuba's Directorate of Intelligence has maintained an active espionage presence in the United States since the early 1960s, with an estimated 11,500 agents, over 3,500 of whom are known to operate abroad [8].

Source: FBI / DOJ Public Records

Data as of May 1, 2026CSV

The most damaging known case is that of Victor Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia who served as a covert agent of Cuba's intelligence services for approximately 50 years after being recruited as a Yale graduate in Chile in 1973. Rocha was sentenced to 15 years in prison — the statutory maximum — in April 2024, along with a $500,000 fine [9]. The Justice Department subsequently filed a civil complaint to revoke his U.S. citizenship [10].

Ana Belen Montes, a senior analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, spied for Cuba for 17 years before her arrest in 2001 [8]. The Cuban Five — members of La Red Avispa (the Wasp Network) — were arrested in 1998 after infiltrating Cuban-American organizations in South Florida [11].

The methods alleged in the current investigation — financial flows through intermediaries, coordinated messaging campaigns, and personnel cultivation — echo patterns seen in confirmed espionage cases. Cuba's intelligence services have historically recruited sympathizers through ideological affinity, often targeting young students and cultivating them over years as they advanced into government positions [8][12].

However, the current probe targets something categorically different from traditional espionage: public advocacy organizations operating in the open. This distinction sits at the heart of the legal and constitutional debate.

The Constitutional Fault Line: Advocacy vs. Agency

The central legal question is what separates lawful advocacy for changes in U.S.-Cuba policy — which is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment — from illegal coordination with a foreign government.

FARA requires registration when a person acts "at the order, request, or under the direction or control" of a foreign principal. The statute's breadth has long concerned legal scholars. The ACLU has warned that FARA's terms are "so broad and vague" that they could be "read to apply to nonprofits, journalists, and others with some 'agency' connection to foreign groups or entities" [13]. Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, has argued that "the First Amendment constrains what federal agencies can do" regarding punishment for speech and association, and that NSPM-7 — the administration's national security policy memo directing Joint Terrorism Task Forces to investigate FARA violations — conflates "First Amendment-protected beliefs" with criminal conduct [13].

CodePink issued a statement calling the Ways and Means Committee hearing "a politically orchestrated attack on the First Amendment" and characterizing the allegations as "unproven accusations" [14].

The legal landscape is further complicated by Attorney General Pam Bondi's own charging memo, issued on her first day in office. That directive instructed prosecutors to limit criminal FARA charges to "instances of alleged conduct similar to more traditional espionage by foreign government actors" and to "focus on civil enforcement, regulatory initiatives, and public guidance" [4][15]. The Bondi memo also disbanded the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, describing recent foreign influence prosecutions as "prosecutorial overreach and weaponization" [15].

This creates an apparent tension: the administration is simultaneously narrowing the scope of FARA criminal enforcement through the Bondi memo while expanding investigative authority over nonprofits through NSPM-7 and the Miami prosecution working group.

FARA Enforcement: A Historical Reckoning

The trajectory of FARA enforcement provides essential context for evaluating the current investigation.

Source: DOJ FARA Unit / Mayer Brown Analysis

Data as of Jan 15, 2026CSV

Between 1938 and 1966, the Justice Department brought 31 criminal FARA cases against 87 individuals and organizations, resulting in 49 convictions. From 1967 to 2016, the statute went largely dormant: only eight criminal cases were brought, resulting in six convictions [3][16]. Since 2017, enforcement has surged, with at least 18 criminal cases — driven initially by the Mueller investigation into Russian interference and subsequently by probes involving agents of China, South Korea, Turkey, and other countries [4][16].

Recent cases illustrate both the statute's reach and its limits. Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, was indicted in September 2024 for FARA violations related to alleged undisclosed work for the Chinese government; her trial ended in a mistrial in December 2025 after jury deadlock [15]. Former congressman Henry Cuellar's FARA-related charges were dismissed in July 2025 under the Bondi memo's narrowed enforcement guidelines [15]. Pras Michel, the musician, was sentenced to 14 years in November 2025 for unregistered lobbying on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests [15].

The average timeline from investigation to indictment in comparable cases varies widely, but recent prosecutions suggest a range of 12 to 24 months from public investigative activity to formal charges [15].

Comparing Cuban Influence to Other Foreign Operations

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has placed Cuba alongside China, Russia, and Iran as a threat to U.S. election security and democratic processes [17]. Intelligence officials have documented instances of Cuban operatives amplifying disinformation about U.S. hurricane response, working alongside Russian and Chinese counterparts to "aggravate political divisions in the U.S. and undermine the democratic process" [18].

But the scale of documented Cuban influence operations is substantially smaller than those of Russia and China. Russia's Internet Research Agency employed hundreds of full-time staff and spent millions of dollars on social media campaigns targeting the 2016 U.S. election. The September 2024 FARA indictment of two Russian nationals alleged that RT employees paid online commentators $10 million to spread pro-Russia propaganda across U.S. social media [4]. China's operations, as documented in the Linda Sun case and others, have involved direct penetration of state government offices [15].

Cuba's documented operations have historically relied on long-term cultivation of individual agents rather than mass-scale information warfare. Whether the alleged nonprofit coordination network represents an evolution toward broader influence operations — or whether the government is overstating the threat — remains contested.

The Sanctions Escalation

On May 1, 2026, the Trump administration issued Executive Order 14404, establishing broad new authority to designate individuals and entities participating in key sectors of Cuba's economy, including energy, defense, metals, mining, and financial services [19]. The order also authorized secondary sanctions against foreign financial institutions doing business with designated parties — a tool previously reserved primarily for Iran and North Korea sanctions programs [20].

On May 7, 2026, OFAC designated 11 Cuban regime-aligned individuals — including senior Communist Party official Roberto Morales Ojeda, National Assembly president Juan Esteban Lazo Hernández, and four military generals — along with three entities including GAESA, the Cuban military's economic conglomerate [21]. The State Department simultaneously sanctioned additional regime elites associated with Cuba's security apparatus [22].

These sanctions actions are separate from but parallel to the nonprofit investigation. No OFAC designations against any of the U.S.-based nonprofits or individuals under investigation have been made public as of this writing.

Stakeholders and Consequences

If the allegations prove true, the categories of people harmed extend across multiple domains. Cuban-American civic organizations — representing a community of roughly 2.5 million people in the United States — face the prospect that institutions claiming to advocate for engagement with Cuba were instead operating under Havana's direction. U.S. policymakers who interacted with these organizations may have received lobbying and policy recommendations shaped by a foreign government without disclosure.

Inside Cuba, opposition groups and civil society organizations who have pressed for democratic reforms face a different kind of harm: the alleged influence network includes organizations that have publicly supported the Cuban Communist Party and echoed its characterization of political dissidents as foreign agents — potentially undermining genuine democratic movements on the island.

On the other side, the roughly 145 organizations identified in the investigation include groups engaged in humanitarian aid delivery, academic exchange, and policy advocacy — activities with clear First Amendment protections. If the investigation is overbroad, it threatens to chill lawful engagement with Cuba across the nonprofit sector and establish a precedent for using FARA as a tool against domestic organizations whose foreign policy positions conflict with the administration's.

What Comes Next

The investigation remains in its early stages. No indictments have been filed against any of the nonprofit organizations or individual activists. The Miami prosecution working group continues to gather evidence, and congressional committees are pressing for financial disclosures from targeted organizations [5][7].

The legal path forward is uncertain. The Bondi memo's instruction to limit FARA criminal charges to "traditional espionage" activity would appear to exclude much of the conduct under investigation — public advocacy, protest organization, and humanitarian aid delivery. But the memo does not restrict civil enforcement, and OFAC sanctions violations operate under separate legal authority with different evidentiary standards [4][15].

The outcome will test whether the U.S. legal system can distinguish between foreign influence operations that threaten democratic self-governance and constitutionally protected advocacy that the government finds politically inconvenient. That distinction — always difficult to draw — carries particular weight when the organizations under scrutiny operate in the open, claim humanitarian or political purposes, and serve communities with deep personal ties to the country in question.