In a turning point in what has been a yearslong saga, a congressional committee investigating the intelligence community’s handling of the “anomalous health incidents” commonly known as Havana syndrome has sent criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.

The investigation by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which morphed into a formal inquiry in February 2024, “continues in a robust manner, including the identification of alleged illegal activities, which the Committee referred to the U.S. Department of Justice in early September,” a committee spokesperson told the Miami Herald.

“Additional criminal referrals may be sent, as the facts determine. This is particularly the case in the Committee’s review of the IC’s obstruction of this investigation,” the spokesperson added, using shorthand for the U.S. intelligence community, which comprises 18 agencies.

The spokesperson did not say which agencies or officials were named in the referrals for potential prosecution.

The criminal referrals come years after U.S. intelligence officials and Canadian diplomats stationed in Havana started reporting feeling suddenly ill in late 2016 after experiencing pressure or hearing what appeared to be a directed noise. They developed symptoms like migraine, tinnitus, balance issues and cognitive problems associated with brain injuries. American and Canadian children are among those injured.

The incidents, first labeled as “attacks” by the first Trump administration before shifting to the milder “anomalous health incidents,” might even predate the first known cases in Havana in late 2016. They have been reported in several other places around the world, including Russia and China.

Efforts by the U.S. government to uncover who or what was behind them have led to shifting narratives time and again.

After initially pointing at mass hysteria as the cause, then hinting at Russian involvement, the intelligence community attempted to put a lid on the Havana Syndrome mystery by attributing the rare ailments to preexisting conditions and environmental factors, and ruling out the possibility that one or more foreign adversaries were attacking U.S. officers.

Those conclusions were laid out in an intelligence assessment from March 2023 produced by seven unnamed intelligence agencies. The assessment, however, was not unanimous because two agencies said they had low confidence in the conclusions. Questioning earlier medical evidence that the victims suffered brain injuries, the assessment also relied on a controversial study by the National Institutes of Health that was later shut down after an internal review confirmed some patients were coerced to participate.

After hearing from victims and whistleblowers, the House intelligence committee started looking into complaints that the CIA and other agencies withheld medical treatment for the officers affected. The congressional investigation has also examined allegations of information suppression between intelligence agencies and between the executive branch and Congress.

An interim report released in December by the House intelligence subcommittee overseeing the CIA blasted the U.S. intelligence community for “attempting to thwart” the investigation and producing an earlier “dubious or misleading” assessment that dismissed the incidents.

“As I have said before, the Biden administration’s IC was wrong in its intelligence assessment on (Havana syndrome) and we are working to set the record straight,” Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas, who was the first to lead the inquiry and now heads the full House Intelligence Committee, said about the criminal referrals.

“Among the many issues involved, the withholding of medical care to force participation in this human subject research study, as directed by personnel in the IC, betrayed those desperately seeking help,” he added. “We will deliver the truth these victims and the American people deserve after being gaslit by the intelligence community for so long.”

A welcome step

For the victims, many of whom were intelligence officials who had to retire due to the injuries they suffered, the referrals come as a vindication after years in which they have been advocating to get medical treatment and hold accountable those who denied care.

“This is the first step in acknowledgment that survivors have so desperately waited for,” said a Havana syndrome victim known as patient zero, a retired intelligence officer who was the first to report an incident in Havana, who asked not to be identified due to security concerns.

“This should signal to those in the intelligence community that you don’t get to operate without impunity,” he added. “It’s time for those who took part in this cover-up to lose their jobs and go to prison. They failed to uphold their oath to the Constitution, and they don’t deserve the position of trust they sit in.”

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA senior officer who suffered brain injuries in one of the incidents in Moscow in 2017, called for transparency and the declassification of a damning 2022 report by the CIA’s Inspector General that looked into the agency’s initial handling of Havana syndrome.

“Congress and the administration must clarify by whom, how and why early judgments on (Havana syndrome) were made, why victims were denied timely care, and why participation in research was required as a condition for treatment,” he told the Herald. “Affected officers and the public deserve clarity, and accountability must follow.”

Critics of the official U.S. government position on the issue have pointed to several studies from doctors who first treated the victims, showing they suffered from several ailments and from injuries that resembled concussions. They also point to the fact that the U.S. government has been quietly paying for medical treatment and compensation to victims after their physicians certified their illnesses cannot be attributed to a known cause or preexisting conditions, in an open contradiction with the intelligence assessment. At least 334 U.S. active and former officials, and members of their families, including 15 children, had been treated at specialized military health facilities for Havana syndrome injuries.

“Our first Interim Report expressed — at an unclassified level — that (Havana syndrome) cannot be explained away as standard medical, environmental, or social factors, as claimed by the IC in its attempt to shape a politically palatable narrative,” the spokesperson for the House intelligence committee said. “Thousands of pages of classified information in the Committee’s possession undergird this finding.”

The spokesperson also accused the intelligence community inspector general of playing a “role ... in the cover-up and hiding from Congress of key information.”

The position of intelligence inspector general has been vacant and filled with an interim director since President Donald Trump took office in January.

By the end of the Biden administration, National Security Council officials started to doubt the government's official position. In a meeting in November 2024 with some of the people affected by the anomalous health incidents, NSC officials said they had seen new information questioning the 2023 assessment’s conclusions that no foreign adversary had the capability nor involvement in attacks on American officers.

In December, the intelligence community updated its assessment to note that two unnamed agencies believed foreign adversaries may have developed technology that could be responsible for the symptoms experienced in some cases. Long before that, in 2022, a report by a panel of scientists convened by intelligence agencies had concluded there was readily available technology that could cause the injuries linked to Havana syndrome.

However, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence downplayed the shift in the latest assessment, emphasizing at the time that the overall conclusions had not changed. That office and the CIA have also vigorously denied that they had withheld information from congressional investigators. And they said evidence presented in a bombshell CBS "60 Minutes" report pointing at Russian involvement in Havana syndrome did not pass scrutiny.

Renewed interest

But with a change of administration and the House investigation moving into high gear, victims of the syndrome hope to get some answers.

The House intelligence committee spokesperson said the committee has been coordinating with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other intelligence agencies “to ensure its new leadership is aware, enabling the consideration of corrective measures.” The office of the director of national intelligence is expected to make an announcement on the Havana syndrome investigation soon, two sources told the Herald.

In a House intelligence committee markup session last month, Crawford said he had recommended to both the Biden and the Trump administrations that they fire Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. “His treatment of (Havana syndrome) victims to me was sufficient cause to have him removed from that position,” Crawford said, according to a recently published transcript.

After the transcript was made public, Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, who heads the House intelligence investigations subcommittee, said on X that “Secretary Hegseth was correct to fire Lt. Gen. Kruse. Newly released transcripts indicate his mismanagement and inappropriate treatment of Havana Syndrome victims was cause enough.”

Asked to clarify whether the Pentagon had told Crawford that was the reason cited for firing Kruse, the intelligence committee’s spokesperson said Crawford was “describing a situation that he knows about, that he believes was an acceptable reason for his dismissal.” Two Herald sources said the handling of the anomalous health incidents played a part in Kruse’s ousting, which was widely attributed to his agency’s initial assessment that U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites had not caused significant damage, angering Trump. The Pentagon has provided no reason for his firing.

Crawford and Jackson met last month with the new director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, to discuss the role it played in the Havana syndrome investigation.

“Victims were denied medical care unless they joined a study pushed by the Intelligence Community. This is unacceptable!” Jackson posted on social media said after the meeting. The intelligence community, he added, “used flawed, cherry-picked results to back an invalid assessment. Thankfully, Dr. Battacharya and the Trump Administration are committed to transparency and want answers.”

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