Ariel Veinmann used to be a repairman of shooting control equipment on a U.S. Navy submarine. During his service, he was dissatisfied with the military and foreign policies of the United States and the navy. Driven by revenge, he took advantage of his work to steal a large number of military secrets and secretly sold them to foreign intelligence agencies. After that, he fled the army hastily and traveled to many countries to find more buyers. But before you know it, the American anti-intelligence agency has set up tight encirclement, and when Ariel fled to Canada via the United States, he was successfully arrested and brought to justice. This espionage case is called "one of the most serious espionage cases" in American history, but for whatever purpose, American officials have not disclosed its specific criminal facts, which has led to speculation. What is the secret of Ariel's leak?
"good boy" deserter
Ariel, who grew up in Salem, Oregon, USA, has always been a sensible "good boy" with full patriotic enthusiasm. At school, he wrote to the local newspaper and accused his classmates of not taking off their hats when playing the national anthem. Before joining the army, he also collected hundreds of letters and greeting cards from primary school students and sent them to the crew of the USS Constellation to thank them for their lofty spirit of serving the country.
On one occasion, one of Ariel's friends boasted that joining the US Navy would enable him to travel around the world for free and lead a carefree life. Later, Ariel was obsessed with the navy and secretly planted the seeds that he must join the navy. In October 22, he solemnly declared to his parents that he was going to join the navy when he graduated from high school in July the following year. At that time, his parents were expect the unexpected and shocked by his decision, because Ariel was very interested in art, classical music and history, and dreamed of making some earth-shattering achievements all day, but now he suddenly changed his ideals and pursuits.
On July 1st, 23, Ariel successfully joined the US Navy, and participated in the training of submarine shooting control equipment repair technicians. His main job was to assist in tracking maritime targets in the submarine command center. During the training period, Ariel graduated from the submarine school two weeks ahead of schedule because of his outstanding performance. As an excellent student, he was sent to serve on the Los Angeles-class attack submarine Albuquerque with its home port in groton, and began to carry out a six-month deployment mission in Europe and the Persian Gulf. Albuquerque is a fast attack submarine, equipped with torpedoes and cruise missiles; It can sneak up to the coast secretly and perform tasks such as transporting special operations commandos or intercepting electronic communications on land.
Although joining the navy made Ariel realize his dream of traveling around the world. However, the cruel reality soon diluted his joy in realizing his dream. Ariel became deeply suspicious of his naive ideas before, and embarked on a road of no return of selling information.
During his voyage to Europe and the Middle East with the submarine, Ariel was greatly disappointed with the military and foreign policies of the US Navy and Bush. He also often complains that the submarine technology he serves is old. Moreover, Ariel is also very dissatisfied with the fact that the US navy has sent submarines to collect intelligence from its allies, regardless of friends and enemies. With the growing discontent, Ariel decided to retaliate and sell submarine information.
in March, 25, when the submarine Albuquerque arrived in Bahrain port to rest, Ariel sneaked off the submarine and peddled military secrets. Later, a large number of military secrets were quietly copied into a laptop for future sale. On July 1st, 25, when the submarine returned to groton Port, Connecticut, Ariel thought the time was ripe, so he ignored the military discipline and laws, and fled the army openly with computers loaded with various military secrets. In the next eight months, Ariel was like into thin air, and the military didn't hear from him until the FBI caught him unexpectedly.
For Ariel's desertion and selling information, his father Robert felt very unbelievable: "I don't know what happened, but I know my son, and he has a strong sense of morality. He is a man who will be filled with indignation when he sees what he thinks is immoral. How can you degenerate into treason? The whole thing doesn't make any sense. Ariel never got into any trouble growing up. He joined the navy and worked hard. " So, what happened to make Ariel change from a "good boy" to a traitor who betrayed the interests of the country?
arrested
It is said that Ariel lived in Vienna, Austria, with a friend for a long time after he became a deserter. In mid-March 26, Ariel thought that the wind was not so tight, relaxed his vigilance and even flew to Mexico City for sightseeing. On March 26th of the same year, he flew to Vancouver to visit his relatives via the United States. Unexpectedly, his name has already been on the military surveillance list and has been wanted all over the country. During the stopover at Dallas airport in Texas, Ariel was caught red-handed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Investigation Bureau.
When searching Ariel's luggage, the agent accidentally found a mobile hard disk, a USB flash drive, a notebook with mysterious symbols and $4,. After identification, the contents of the hard disk, USB flash drive and notebook are all top secret information of the latest nuclear submarine of the US Navy. On April 1st, agents raided Ariel's residence in Salem and seized some of his personal belongings. In addition, the agent also found the missing military laptop from his apartment in Vienna, Austria, but the hard disk was removed.
With the arrest of Ariel, his whole criminal process slowly surfaced. Subsequently, Ariel was accused of espionage, AWOL, failure to properly keep confidential information, copying confidential information privately, selling confidential information to foreign intelligence agencies, stealing and destroying public laptops, and was handed over to a military court for trial.
The court accused Ariel of providing information to foreign spies in Bahrain, Austria and Mexico in March, October and March, 25, respectively. After a long trial lasting eight months, Ariel finally pleaded guilty and read a prepared statement in court, admitting that he illegally stole confidential data while serving on the Albuquerque in 25, including the resumes of Austrian employees and the technical manual of Tomahawk cruise missiles. When he escaped, he took with him 29 secret documents and 4 secret technical manuals downloaded from the internal network of the Albuquerque submarine, in addition to some special codes of the CIA and the State Council internal units. However, this statement made no mention of his espionage charges in Manama, Bahrain and Mexico City.
in addition to the above confidential documents, he also stole some non-confidential materials, which contained intelligence information about Austria collected by the United States. As for his experience in Austria, Ariel admitted that he had contacted people who claimed to be representatives of a third country in Vienna in October 25 and provided them with some confidential and unclassified materials, but did not disclose the name of this country, only that this country was a competitor of the United States in history. He fled to Vienna, Austria, mainly in the hope that Austria would be interested in the archival materials about Austria collected by American intelligence agencies and provide him with political asylum. But for some unknown reason, Ariel changed his mind temporarily and sold the technical manual of Tomahawk missile to the intelligence agency of a foreign embassy in Vienna. Ariel said that he did this in the hope of selling this information in exchange for starting a new life in another country. When talking about the reasons for desertion, he admitted that he was very disappointed with the United States and didn't want to stay in this dishonest country any more. He wanted to go abroad and never return to the United States.
From the beginning to the end, the U.S. official did not disclose the process and details of the trial, and remained silent on which countries Ariel acted as a spy, what was the starting point of his interests, how he stole the laptop and managed to take it away. Moreover, the military also signed a secret agreement with Ariel, but refused to disclose the details of this agreement. Ariel also promised that he would never mention the contents of this agreement in this life, and kept silent about his case.
It is said that the military once considered to sentence Ariel to death, but for various unclear reasons, it resolutely gave up this idea. According to American military law, the maximum penalty for espionage is life imprisonment. Later, in exchange for Ariel's not disclosing the contents of the agreement, the court sentenced Ariel to 12 years' imprisonment in December 26 and dismissed him from the army on charges of AWOL and selling information to foreign intelligence agencies.
Who is the buyer
According to US intelligence agencies, Ariel's espionage case can be called "one of the most serious espionage cases" in American history, because he leaked the top secret information of the most advanced nuclear submarine of the US Navy. However, after Ariel was arrested, due to various reasons unknown to the outside world, the US official refused to provide the media with the case records detailing Ariel's alleged crimes, and the records of the preliminary investigation of the investigation court were not made public. It has also been vague about when and where the hearing will be held, and its attitude is very ambiguous. Moreover, according to the regulations, in a military court, a relevant order must be issued on the termination or sealing of a case, but the official has never issued this order. In this way, Ariel became the first criminal who committed espionage in American history, but the official refused to disclose the details.
The US official's practice has to make the outside world have all kinds of associations and speculations. Who is the buyer? Who is behind this? Which country is the ultimate beneficiary? The outside world has been foggy, and I don't know why. Is it true that the United States * * * is speechless and really has a compelling reason?
After Ariel's murder, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Navy vaguely claimed that the information had been sold to "several foreign countries" and vaguely mentioned "Russia". Some American media reported that Ariel sold the information to Russia. The Washington Times broke the news that it was Russian agents who contacted Ariel, and Ariel provided Russian agents with a manual marked "confidential" with technical information about the Albuquerque submarine, which enabled Russia to locate and track the Los Angeles-class submarine.
The Observer, a Saudi media, told the truth, saying that the United States was "cheated" by its die-hard ally Israel, which was the real buyer of intelligence. According to the report, for Israel, the information provided by Ariel can be called a timely help, because what Israel needs most after possessing nuclear weapons and advanced submarines is submarine-launched nuclear technology. In fact, since history, Israel has lacked basic trust in the United States, and its espionage against the United States has never stopped. However, since Israel is a hardcore ally of the United States in the Middle East, the US official categorically denied that the information was sold to Israel. There is an accusation that Ariel's espionage "hurts the interests of the United States and is conducive to the military development of foreign countries", but it does not mention Israel at all. The outside world believes that the United States does not dare to tear its face, but can only "break its teeth and swallow it."
Another doubt is: Did Ariel really betray the secrets of nuclear submarines? There are also many doubts about this statement. Ariel joined the navy in July 23 and completed his training in October 24. He only performed a six-month cruise with the submarine. Obviously, the purpose of the mission was intelligence gathering. If he sells the information about how American submarines carry out underwater intelligence gathering, then his betrayal will be a very serious betrayal and will cause immeasurable losses to the US Navy. If you just sell information about the work he is responsible for, it has no great intelligence value at all, because Ariel's daily job is to operate shooting control equipment. This kind of work is similar to other countries' navies and is not worth mentioning.
no matter what kind of information he sells, Ariel will have to stay in prison for 12 years. His dream of traveling around the world was shattered, accompanied by a dark life behind bars.