The White House sent young Latinos undercover to mess with Cuba for less than $6 per hour

The White House sent young Latinos undercover to mess with Cuba for less than $6 per hour
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Obama administration used the U.S. Agency for International Development as a front to send young Latin Americans undercover into Cuba to foment political unrest, according to an Associated Press report released Monday.

Begun in 2009, the program secretly recruited and deployed young people from Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Peru to the cloistered island. In one instance, the young agents staged an HIV-prevention workshop to network with disaffected locals — an event that a memo obtained by the AP called "the perfect excuse" for the group to pursue its secret goals. What's more, the spies worked for as little as $5.41 per hour.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Jon Terbush

Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.