Successful Missions of US Spy Released From Cuba Prison Rolando Sarraff Trujillo Revealed

More information has surfaced about the U.S. spy who was recently freed from a prison in Cuba after spending more than two decades behind bars.

On Wednesday, Cuba released U.S. contractor Alan Gross and an instrumental U.S. intelligence agent identified by inside sources as Rolando Sarraff Trujillo. At the same time, the U.S. freed three members of the infamous Cuban Five, who spent over 15 years in American jails for espionage.

CNN reports that Sarraff is in his early 50s and was convicted of espionage in Cuba in 1995. The office of the director of national intelligence said he provided the U.S. government with information that "was instrumental in the identification and disruption of several Cuban intelligence operatives in the United States and ultimately led to ... successful federal espionage prosecutions."

Sarraff also played a major role in convicting former Defense Intelligence Agency senior analyst Ana Belen Montes. She pleaded guilty of spying for the Cuban government in 2002 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The spy also helped uncover ex-State Department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn, who pleaded guilty in 2009 for illegally aiding officials with the Cuban government.

Furthermore, Sarraff played a role in helping federal authorities capture members of the notorious Cuban Five.

President Barack Obama described the spy as "one of the most important intelligence agents that the United States has ever had in Cuba."

"This man -- whose sacrifice has been known to only a few -- provided America with the information that led us to arrest the network of Cuban agents that included the men transferred to Cuba today as well as other spies in the United States," he said.

According to a senior Obama administration official, Cuba agreed to release Gross and Sarraff on humanitarian grounds.

The developments are being hailed as a sweeping diplomatic shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba since 1961, when the embassy closed and the embargo was imposed, following Fidel Castro's takeover of the Cuban government.