Photo by Lianhao Qu
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, a 32-year-old guy from Colorado Springs, got a big-time-out for doing a serious no-no. He pleaded guilty to six counts of espionage. That’s a fancy word for spying. Between August and September 2022, Dalke used secret emails to send bits of top-secret documents to someone. He thought this person was a Russian agent. But, oops! It was actually an undercover FBI agent.
Dalke wanted to show Russia he could be trusted with their secrets. He thought he was being clever, but he was actually showing the FBI his cards. On a summer day, August 26, Dalke asked for $85,000 for the secrets he had. He said these secrets would be super helpful to Russia. He even promised to spill more beans once he got back to his office in Washington, D.C.
He planned to hand over more secret stuff at a place called Union Station in Denver. He used a laptop and followed the FBI agent’s instructions to send five files. Four were top-secret, and one was a letter in Russian, saying, “My friends! I’m so happy to give you this info…” It was like he was trying to make new pen pals, but with secret spy stuff.
The FBI swooped in and arrested Dalke on September 28, 2023, right after he sent those files.
Dalke admitted he knew he was doing a bad thing by giving these files to someone from another country. He thought it would hurt the United States and help the other country. Dalke was pretty smart, with a degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance. He was in the United States Army for a bit and got a special pass called a Secret security clearance in 2016.
He worked at the NSA for a short time in 2022, where he had access to super-duper secret programs. He quit because they wouldn’t let him take a long vacation. But then he got his job back at the NSA later that year.
He told the undercover FBI agent he needed money, and he got paid in something called cryptocurrency, which is like internet money. Each payment was about $16,500.
The big boss of lawyers, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, said that Dalke broke his promise to protect the country. He tried to sell secrets to a Russian agent but ended up showing his hand to the FBI instead. Garland said that people who do bad things like this will always get caught and punished. He thanked the FBI offices in Denver and Washington for their super-smart work on catching Dalke.
