MIAMI (AP) — Leaders with the largest nonprofit organization for young Cuban-Americans quietly provided strategic support for the federal government’s secret “Cuban Twitter” program, connecting contractors with potential investors and serving as paid consultants, The Associated Press has learned.

Interviews and documents obtained by the AP show leaders of Roots of Hope were approached by the “Cuban Twitter” program’s organizers in early 2011 about taking over the text-messaging service, known as ZunZuneo, and discussed shifting it into private hands. Few investors were willing to privately finance ZunZuneo, and Roots of Hope members dropped the idea. But at least two people on its board of directors went on to work as consultants, even as they served in an organization that explicitly refused to accept any U.S. government funds and distanced itself from groups that did.