A US Army analyst has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to sell military secrets to China, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has said. Sgt. Korbin Schultz was arrested in March after an investigation by the FBI and US Army counterintelligence alleged that he was paid $42,000 (£33,000) in exchange for dozens of sensitive security records.
Officials said the criminal conspiracy started in June 2022 and ran through his arrest.
He is to be sentenced in January.
According to court documents, Sgt. Schultz, who held a security clearance allowing him to access top secret information, conspired to gather data with someone he believed to be living in Hong Kong.
He apparently introduced himself as a Hong Kong resident and asked Sgt. Schultz to collect sensitive data related to missile defense and mobile artillery systems, court records show.
US Army intelligence analyst
Sgt. Schultz also collected data on US fighter aircraft, military tactics, and the US military’s defense strategy for Taiwan based on what it learned from Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the DOJ’s National Security Division described the situation, stating: “By conspiring to transmit national defence information to a person living outside the United States, this defendant callously put our national security at risk in order to profit off the trust our military had in him.”.
Sgt. Schultz pleaded guilty to all charges against him on Tuesday, including conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information and bribery of a public official. In an earlier indictment against Sgt. Schultz, it had been detailed how messages he had sent to the supposed Hong Kong resident, who was referred to in court documents as Conspirator A.
“Governments like China are aggressively targeting our military personnel and national security information, and we will do everything in our power to ensure that information is safeguarded from hostile foreign governments,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells said in a statement.
Before he was arrested, he sent dozens of sensitive and restricted—but unclassified—military documents, the Department of Justice said. Among the items collected and sent by Schultz were a document discussing the lessons learned by the Army from the Russia-Ukraine war that it would apply in a defense of Taiwan, documents relating to Chinese military tactics, and a document relating to U.S. military satellites.
Schultz was paid around $42,000 for the information, the department said. “By conspiring to transmit national defense information to a person living outside the United States, this defendant callously put our national security at risk to cash in on the trust our military placed in him,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said.
The case also brings to light the general issue that involves foreign interference and issues concerning national security. Therefore, this incident with the present-day tensions between the US and China is a stark reminder of the high stakes put in safeguarding sensitive information.
Legal experts say the analyst will get a huge sentence in prison in that plea bargain. The individual will be sentenced later in the year after the court has adequately analyzed every bit of the case.
As such, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies remain engaged in building their security so that the same failure may not occur again in the future. This case study stands important to remind us of integrity in carrying out security.
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