A U.S. Army intelligence analyst admitted on Tuesday to conspiring to sell military secrets to China, according to the Department of Justice. Korbein Schultz, who was indicted in March, faced charges including conspiracy to disclose national defense information, exporting defense articles and technical data without a license, and bribery of a public official.
Schultz, who had top-secret clearance, collaborated with a person residing in Hong Kong, whom he suspected to be linked to the Chinese government. The scheme involved gathering national defense information, including classified data and export-controlled technical details about U.S. military weapons systems, in exchange for financial compensation, as outlined in the charging and plea documents.
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“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.
A U.S. Army Intelligence Analyst, Korbein Schultz, has pled guilty to selling our national security & defense secrets to China.
For $42,000.
Some extremely sensitive stuff in here that the Chinese government should never have access to.https://t.co/p80bWPi2f2 pic.twitter.com/0ZtoSxuoDH
— ClearingTheFog (@clearing_fog) August 13, 2024
Before his arrest, Schultz had sent dozens of sensitive and restricted, though unclassified, military documents, according to the Department of Justice.
Among the materials Schultz provided were a document detailing the Army’s lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war that could be applied to Taiwan’s defense, documents on Chinese military tactics, and information related to U.S. military satellites.
The Department of Justice reported that Schultz received approximately $42,000 in payment for this information.
“By conspiring to transmit national defence 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.
Schultz is set to be sentenced on January 23, 2025.
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