A former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) employee from Colorado has been arrested on account of attempting to sell classified data to a foreign spy in an attempt to fulfill his personal problems facing because of debts.
According to the court documents released on Thursday, the accused Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 30, was an undercover agent who was working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Jareh Sebastian said that he was in contact with the representative of a particular nation "with many interests that are adverse to the United States," he was actually talking to an undercover FBI agent, according to his arrest affidavit.
Dalke was arrested on Wednesday after he allegedly agreed to transmit classified data.
"On or about August 26, 2022, Dalke requested $85,000 in return for additional information in his possession. Dalke agreed to transmit additional information using a secure connection set up by the FBI at a public location in Denver," eventually it led to his arrest, the DoJ said.
Earlier he was employed at the NSA from June 6, 2022, to July 1, 2022, as part of a temporary assignment in Washington D.C as an Information Systems Security Designer.
Dalke is also accused of transferring additional National Defense Information (NDI) to the undercover FBI agent at an undisclosed location in the U.S. state of Colorado.
Following the investigation, he was arrested on September 28 by the law enforcement agency.
As per the USA court law, Dalke was charged with three violations of the Espionage Act. However, the arrest affidavit did not identify the country to which Dalke allegedly provided information.
The affidavit has been filed by the FBI and mentioned that Dalke also served in the U.S. Army from about 2015 to 2018 and held a Secret security clearance, which he received in 2016. The defendant further held a Top Secret security clearance during his tenure at the NSA.
"Between August and September 2022, Dalke used an encrypted email account to transmit excerpts of three classified documents he had obtained during his employment to an individual Dalke believed to be working for a foreign government," the Justice Department (DoJ) said in a press release.
