The most serious espionage case in American history: the "mole" who escaped from a nuclear submarine

Ariel Veinmann used to be a repairman of shooting control equipment on U.S. Navy submarines. 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 in a hurry and went to many countries to find more buyers. But unconsciously, the US anti-intelligence agency has laid a tight encirclement and successfully arrested Ariel when he fled to Canada via the United States. 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 triggered speculation. What's Ariel's secret?

Good boy deserter

Ariel, who grew up in Salem, Oregon, USA, has always been a sensible "good boy" and full of 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 American warship Constellation to thank them for their lofty spirit of serving the country.

Once, a friend of Ariel boasted that joining the US Navy allowed him to travel around the world for free and live a carefree life. Later, Ai Lier was obsessed with the navy and secretly planted the seeds that he had to join the navy. From June 5438 to 2002 10, when he graduated from high school in July of the following year, he solemnly announced to his parents that he would join the navy. At that time, his parents were surprised 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 1 2003, Ariel successfully joined the US Navy and participated in the training of submarine shooting control equipment repair technicians. His job is mainly to assist in tracking maritime targets in the submarine command center. During the training, Ariel graduated from submarine school two weeks ahead of schedule because of his outstanding performance. As an excellent student, he was sent to serve on the L.A.-class attack submarine Albuquerque, whose home port is in groton, and began 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 secretly sneak into the coast and perform tasks such as transporting special operations commandos or intercepting electronic communications on land.

Although joining the navy made Ariel realize her dream of traveling around the world. However, the cruel reality soon diluted his joy in realizing his dream. Ariel became deeply suspicious of her naive ideas before and embarked on a road of no return of selling information.

During the submarine voyage to Europe and the Middle East, Ariel was disappointed with the military and foreign policies of the US Navy and Bush. He also often complains that the submarine technology he serves is outdated. Moreover, Ariel is also very dissatisfied with the U.S. navy's practice of sending submarines to collect intelligence from allies regardless of friends and enemies. With the growing discontent, Ariel decided to retaliate and sell submarine information.

In March 2005, when the Albuquerque submarine arrived in Bahrain for a 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 1 2005, the submarine returned to groton Port, Connecticut. Ariel thought the time was ripe, so he ignored the military discipline and national laws and fled the army openly with a computer loaded with various military secrets. In the next eight months, Ariel disappeared into the air, and the military didn't hear from him until the FBI caught him unexpectedly.

For Ai Lier's desertion and selling information, his father Robert felt very incredible: "I don't know what happened, but I know my son. 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 makes no sense. Ariel never got into any trouble growing up. He joined the navy and worked hard. "So, what happened, let Ai Lier from a" good boy "into a traitor who betrayed national interests?

bring sb to justice

It is said that Ariel lived in Vienna, Austria for a long time with a friend after he became a deserter. In mid-March, 2006, Ariel thought the wind was not so tight, relaxed his vigilance and even flew to Mexico City for sightseeing. On March 26th of the same year, I flew to Vancouver to visit my relatives via the United States. Unexpectedly, his name has already been on the military surveillance list and is wanted by the whole country. During his stay at Dallas airport in Texas, Ariel was caught red-handed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Naval Investigation Bureau.

While searching Ariel's luggage, the agent accidentally found a mobile hard disk, a USB flash drive, a notebook with mysterious symbols and 4000 dollars. After identification, the contents of hard disk, USB flash drive and notebook are top secret information of the latest nuclear submarine of the US Navy. On April 1, 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 has been removed.

With the arrest of Ariel, his whole criminal process slowly surfaced. Subsequently, Ariel was accused of espionage, AWOL, failing 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, June, 2005 and March, 2006 respectively. After a long trial of 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 2005, 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 Albuquerque submarine's internal network, as well as some special codes of CIA and the State Council's internal units. However, this statement made no mention of his espionage charges in Manama, Bahrain and Mexico City.

In addition to the above-mentioned confidential documents, he also stole some non-confidential materials, including intelligence information about Austria collected by the United States. As for his experience in Austria, Ariel admitted that he contacted people who claimed to be representatives of a third country in Vienna from June, 5438 to October, 2005/KLOC-0, and provided them with some confidential and non-confidential materials, but did not disclose the name of this country, saying 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 collected by American intelligence agencies and provide him with political asylum. But for some unknown reason, Ariel temporarily changed his mind and sold the technical manual of Tomahawk missiles 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 wants to go abroad and never return to America.

The U.S. official did not disclose the process and details of the trial from beginning to end, and remained silent about which countries Ariel acted as a spy, what was the starting point of interests, and how to steal and try to take away the laptop. Moreover, the military also signed a secret agreement with Ariel, but refused to disclose the details of this agreement. Ariel also promised never to mention the contents of this agreement again in her life and to remain silent about her case.

It is said that the military once considered sentencing Ariel to death, but for various unclear reasons, it resolutely gave up the idea. According to American military law, the maximum penalty for espionage is life imprisonment. Later, in exchange for Ariel not disclosing the contents of the agreement, the court sentenced Ariel 12 to imprisonment in February 2006, and dismissed him from the army on charges of AWOL and selling information to foreign intelligence agencies.

Who is the buyer?

American intelligence agencies said that the "Ariel 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, American officials refused to provide the media with detailed records of Ariel's alleged crimes, and the records of the preliminary investigation by the investigation court were not made public. When and where to hold the hearing has also been vague, and the attitude is very ambiguous. Moreover, according to the regulations, in military courts, relevant orders must be issued on the termination or sealing of cases, but the official has never issued such an order. In this way, Ariel became the first criminal to commit espionage in American history, but officials refused to disclose details.

This practice of American officials has forced the outside world to generate various associations and speculations. Who is the buyer? Who's behind this? Which country will ultimately benefit? The outside world has been foggy and I don't know why. The United States is speechless. Is there really a convincing reason?

After the Ariel case, the US 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 this information to Russia. The Washington Times broke the news that Ariel was contacted by Russian agents, and Ariel provided Russian agents with a manual marked "confidential", which contained technical information about the Albuquerque submarine, enabling Russia to locate and track the Los Angeles-class submarine.

However, the Observer, a Saudi media, told the truth that the United States was "pitted" by its die-hard ally Israel, and Israel was the real buyer of intelligence. According to the report, for Israel, the information provided by Ariel can be called timely help, because what Israel needs most after possessing nuclear weapons and advanced submarines is submarine-launched nuclear technology. In fact, throughout history, Israel has lacked basic trust in the United States, and its espionage activities against the United States have never stopped. However, since Israel is a staunch ally of the United States in the Middle East, American officials categorically deny selling information to Israel. There is an accusation that Ariel's espionage activities "hurt the interests of the United States and are conducive to foreign military development", but there is no mention of Israel at all. The outside world believes that the United States does not dare to tear its face and can only "bite its teeth and swallow it."

Another question is: Did Ariel really betray the secret of the nuclear submarine? There are also many doubts about this statement. Ariel joined the navy in July 2003 and completed his training in June 5438+ 10. He only sailed with the submarine for six months. Obviously, the purpose of this mission is to gather intelligence. If he betrays the information about how American submarines collect underwater intelligence, then his betrayal will be very serious and will cause immeasurable losses to the US Navy. If you only sell the information he is responsible for, there is no great intelligence value at all, because Ariel's daily job is to operate the shooting control equipment. This kind of work is similar to other countries' navies and is not worth mentioning.

No matter what kind of information is sold, Ariel will have to stay in an iron prison for 12 years. His dream of traveling around the world was shattered, followed by a dark life behind bars.