Special Agent Héctor Pesquera would not disclose identities or say how many suspects the FBI has linked to the ring.

 BY GAIL EPSTEIN NIEVES

 Eager to take more sting out of the self-described "Wasp Network,'' the FBI plans to arrest other alleged members of the dismantled Cuban spy ring that saw five of its agents convicted in federal court last month, the FBI's top agent in Miami said.

 "There are going to be other people picked up on this matter here,'' Héctor Pesquera, special agent in charge in Miami, told The Herald. ``We haven't finished our
 investigation, and I am very confident that additional people will be charged in this intelligence network operation.''

 Pesquera would not disclose identities or say how many suspects the FBI has linked to the Cuban intelligence ring. Nor would he say what laws they might have violated.

 Asked why they weren't charged and indicted on the first go-round, Pesquera said, ``There are some investigative and prosecutorial strategies employed in any case.''

 Paul McKenna, the lead defense attorney in the six-month spy trial, was surprised to hear that the FBI was still targeting Wasp Network members in the United States. He believes more likely prosecutorial targets would be Cubans back in Cuba.

 ``I don't think there's anybody left here,'' McKenna said. ``But who knows, the government is probably so encouraged by their work and the conviction that they have boundless energy and are ready to climb the tallest mountain.''

 Cuba pulled back at least four -- and likely more -- agents as soon as the network was dismantled with 10 arrests in September 1998 ``because they thought we were coming after them,'' Pesquera said.

 But Pesquera and other authorities acknowledge there are more Cuban spies working in the United States. ``We are continually monitoring as many of the people who are here to conduct illegal or intelligence activities on behalf of the Castro regime as we can,'' he said.

 Some would more aptly be labeled ``collaborators,'' Pesquera said. Fewer are high-level, full-time intelligence operatives known as ``illegal officers'' -- the title given to three of the five spies convicted last month: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and Fernando González.

 The two other convicted men -- René González and Antonio Guerrero, both U.S. born -- were ``agents'' who took directions from illegal officers but had no direct contact with Cuba.

 The ring members were found guilty of monitoring U.S. military installations and Cuban exile groups in a bid to feed secrets to Fidel Castro. Hernández also was convicted of conspiring to commit murder in the shoot-down of four Brothers to the Rescue fliers.

 Relatives of the Brothers' fliers have spent years pushing for another round of indictments in the 1996 shoot-down -- naming not only leader Fidel Castro, but eight other people who had direct roles in the air assault: the MiG pilots, the ground controllers, the air force bosses, the head of the Directorate of Intelligence.

 Pesquera would not say whether an indictment of those officials -- below Castro's level -- was being contemplated. U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis has declined to answer that question as well in the wake of last month's conviction.

 ``I advocate charging anyone who had anything to do with the shoot-down and the network whom we can meet the [legal] threshold on,'' Pesquera said. ``I will pursue each of those individuals vigorously.

 ``We haven't turned the switch off on this particular network and the shoot-down.''

 Pesquera also said that the spy case ``never would have made it to court'' had he not been able to directly lobby outgoing FBI Director Louis Freeh.

 ``I credit the director with having the wisdom and courage to support us. Once the facts were put before him, he saw it. . . . To this day there are people in my
 headquarters who are not completely sold.''

 Taking an espionage case to court involves risky trade-offs, because ``you give away a lot of information'' about techniques and intelligence, Pesquera said.

 But the shoot-down made those trade-offs worthwhile, he said.

 ``There was in my mind, the director's mind, Janet Reno's mind, a concerted plan to murder those pilots,'' he said. ``When you blatantly cross the line between espionage to criminal activity, to murder, you have to draw the line.''

 Hernández, Guerrero and Labañino face a maximum term of life in prison. Fernando González and Rene González face maximum 10-year sentences. Sentencing is
 scheduled for this fall.

 Five other Wasp Network spies got plea bargains requiring them to cooperate with the prosecution, and four are fugitives believed to be in Cuba.

                                    © 2001