Global Security Newswire

The United States has moved to expel a Venezuelan envoy reported to have been involved in discussions on launching cyber strikes against atomic energy facilities and other U.S. assets, the New York Times reported on Sunday (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2011).

State Department officials would not disclose why Venezuela's consul general in Miami, Livia Acosta Noguera, had been told to exit the country.

A Univision news report last month claimed Acosta participated in talks with would-be hackers on launching digital assaults against the United States during an earlier diplomatic assignment in Mexico. One-time Mexican college students asserted that as early as 2007 they recorded their talks with diplomats at the Venezuelan and Iranian embassies in Mexico on mounting cyber strikes inside the United States. Acosta was reportedly recorded asserting she would relay details of the plot to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

The ex-students said they had no plan to actually carry out such strikes, which they said were originally suggested by Cuba. The Univision report did not contain ironclad proof that Venezuelan or Iranian diplomats had actively considered pursuing the students' proposal.

There has not been any hint U.S. officials were able to confirm the Univision report's assertions. However, the determination to order Acosta out of the country joins other White House signals of displeasure with Venezuela's continued close ties to Iran in the face of mounting international determination to penalize Tehran for its divisive nuclear program (see related GSN story, today; William Neuman, New York Times, Jan. 8).