A US Army soldier has been arrested on accusations of selling sensitive information related to US military capabilities, including documents detailing potential US actions regarding Taiwan, US Department of Justice officials said on Thursday.
Sergeant Korbein Schultz, who is also an intelligence analyst, was accused in a six-count indictment of charges including conspiring to obtain and disclose military defense information and bribery of a public official.
The 24-year-old was arrested at Fort Campbell, which straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky border, shortly after the indictment was released.
Photo: AFP
“The men and women of the United States Armed Forces dedicate their lives to maintain our national security,” US Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Henry Leventis said. “Our laws protecting national defense information are critical to that mission and they must be enforced. Illegal dissemination of national defense information puts our country, our fellow citizens, members of our military and our allies at risk.”
The indictment alleges that Schultz — who had a top-secret security clearance — conspired with an individual identified only as “Conspirator A” to disclose documents, photographs and other national defense materials since June 2022.
The indictment says that Schultz was recruited by the individual not only due to his security clearance, but also because he was tasked with gathering sensitive US military information.
Some of the information that Schultz supposedly gave to the individual included information related to the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, hypersonic equipment, studies on future developments of US military forces, and studies on military drills and operations in major nations such as China.
The indictment said that Schultz was initially asked to provide documents detailing lessons that could be learned from Russia’s war with Ukraine and how those lessons could be applied to the US helping Taiwan in the event of an attack by China.
Schultz was paid US$200 for that information, which then prompted Conspirator A to ask for a “long-term partnership.”
Conspirator A, who was described in the indictment as a foreign national purporting to reside in Hong Kong, later said that Schultz could earn more money if he handed over “internal only” material rather than unclassified documents.
In total, Shultz received at least 14 payments totaling US$42,000.
“The defendant and his co-conspirator also discussed recruiting another member of the US military to join their conspiracy and to provide additional national defense information in order to conceal their illegal conduct,” Leventis said.
Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Ruth Castro in a statement said that Schultz has been in the army since November 2018 and his hometown is Wills Point, Texas.
Schultz was previously assigned to Fort Cavazos, Texas, and was deployed once to eastern Europe, said Lieutenant Colonel Tony Hoefler, a spokesman for Fort Campbell.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS