Despite clashes over reality of Havana Syndrome, CIA agents have been paid for injuries

A CIA officer stationed in Belgrade and her baby. Members of a U.S. intelligence tech team sent to Bogota. A female intelligence officer in Frankfurt.

These CIA agents, who are still active and whose details have not been previously reported, have been quietly receiving compensation for sustaining brain injuries associated with “anomalous health incidents” — the U.S. government’s term for what has come to be known as Havana Syndrome.

Intelligence agencies have said it is unlikely that a foreign adversary has been attacking American officers around the world. They publicly said Havana Syndrome could be explained away by environmental factors, previous conditions or stress. At the same time, the CIA and other federal agencies are paying compensation to these officers precisely because they had the kind of brain injury that cannot be explained by any of those circumstances.

And it all happened when they were working in very different places around the world.

Victims of Havana Syndrome incidents, first happening in Cuba and later in several other countries, have reported feeling a strange noise or pressure coming from a specific direction and developed symptoms similar to a traumatic brain injury.

One case of an officer recently receiving compensation seems to push the Havana Syndrome timeline back to 2014 — appearing first not in Cuba, but in Europe.

Sources familiar with the cases who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter told the Miami Herald the CIA officer received compensation for an “anomalous health incident” when she was working in Frankfurt, Germany, in 2014. The first recorded incident was previously believed to have happened in Havana in late 2016.

To receive the one-time payments, officers must comply with requirements in the Havana Act, a law passed by Congress in 2021, including providing medical records showing they sustained brain injuries while on duty.

One of the sources said there are several cases of CIA agents affected who were probably known to Russian intelligence because their work involved Russia or were stationed in places where Russian spies operate with relative ease, including Cuba, China and Europe.

That’s the case of a female officer stationed in Belgrade, Serbia, at the time of the incident in 2021 who previously worked on matters related to Russia. She and her months-old baby had to be evacuated, and both had brain injuries, the sources said. The Wall Street Journal reported the CIA evacuated an intelligence officer serving in Serbia for injuries in connection with the Havana Syndrome at the time but did not provide any details of the case.

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