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A couple of years ago one acquaintance of mine, who works at a company making aviation simulators, bought some flight manual for US fighter jet on Ebay.... And
by Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
A couple of years ago one acquaintance of mine, who works at a company making aviation simulators, bought some flight manual for US fighter jet on Ebay.... And when he travelled to Georgia (near the Black sea one), he was detained and deported to the US and has spent a year in prison there on espionage charges.
He was released after great efforts by many people and is forever banned entry to the US. So I wouldn't touch anything 'secret' and 'military' even with a 2 meter pole.
- mhh__ 5y agoIs this one of the DCS developers?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoYeah, that one. He went for a salsa dancing festival in Georgia, and it totally didn't go as planned.
- SOMA_BOFH 5y agohe shipped the manuals to russia through a third party to obscure his identity because he knew it was illegal. the reaction to the crime may have lacked proportionality but there are more details to the story.
- op00to 5y agoMan what a bummer. The F16 is my favorite jet to fly in DCS. :(
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoIs there any suggestion that there was anything to learn from manuals being sold in eBay that wouldn't already be well known? Did the person selling the manuals get prosecuted? Was someone court martialed for releasing them?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoThe legality to own, sell, export, and import things can be different.
- devman0 5y agoThey were probably illegal to export under ITAR, but otherwise not classified, there are lots of items that fall in to that category.
- spython 5y agoThere are legitimate services commonly used to buy stuff from US sellers who don't want to deal with the complicated shipping to Russia and other countries. I doubt he had any intention to obscure his identity – the seller would just not sell to him directly.
- devman0 5y agoIt's only legitimate so long as it isn't used to circumvent ITAR. The seller would probably not sell to him directly because exporting flight manuals for military aircraft was paper work the seller didn't want to deal with. By obscuring his identity through a third party the buyer violated ITAR, the seller probably also did as well by not doing proper due diligence.
- spython 5y agoWould that not make the middle man service guilty, not the buyer who probably has no idea about US law?
- will4274 5y agoHe also promised (on the DCS forum) that he would not sell the material and then did so repeatedly to nationals from a variety of countries.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ganzuul 5y agoIs this fact or FUD?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoDecide for yourself: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dcs+developer+arrested https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dcs+developer+arrested
- Mirioron 5y agoWhy is it possible for him to be deported from Georgia to the USA? He didn't break any Georgian laws, did he?
- detaro 5y agoIllegitimately obtaining military "secrets" is a crime pretty much everywhere. Would it have been illegal for him to obtain such documents about Georgian military tech in such a way in Georgia? Then the US can ask for him to extradited for obtaining US documents - at least that's how many extradition treaties work.
- cm2187 5y agoAlso it’s not because there aren’t extradition treaties that one cannot be deported. A country can always ask for a one time favour, and the US usually gets most head of state’s attention.
- catchmilk 5y agoAssuming OP's story is 100% true - how is buying something off of Ebay illegitimate?
- scoopertrooper 5y agoBuying the manuals wasn’t the crime. He violated the Arms Export Control Act, when he tried to ship them back to Russia via an American stooge.
- jevoten 5y agoThe Arms Export Control Act is a US law, and his friend was neither American nor in America. As a non-American myself, I don't like it one bit when I see US law reach into what should be sovereign countries. And then have that dismissed as "there's nothing stopping Georgia from doing a favor for the US", when that favor involves taking away the freedom of one of their citizens. A US citizen getting extradited to Russia as a favor would not be treated so casually.
- wtallis 5y agoI think you meant extradited rather than deported, for his transfer from Georgian custody to the US. He was subsequently deported from the US after pleading guilty and being sentenced.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoPerhaps, English isn't my first language.
- erikerikson 5y agoThank you for learning English. Hopefully that response helped you learn more of it.
- pigbearpig 5y agoThere’s nothing secret about this. The info is on Wikipedia. The “secret” is either a joke or clickbait. I’m going with a joke.