14 DAY TRIAL // Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle, a naval officer working at the HMCS Trinity security unit at the dockyard in Halifax, has admitted that between July 2007 and January 2011 he sold sensitive information to agents from Russia’s GRU military agency.
In 2007, Delisle – now aged 41 – went to the Russian embassy and offered them his services as a spy, CBC News reports.
The information he supplied to the Russians was highly valuable, because the officer was working on Stone Ghost, a system on which the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Britain shared information.
Each time he went to his workplace, the spy copied information onto a USB stick. On a monthly basis , he would send the information back to the GRU in exchange for amounts of money that varied between $2,800 (2,100 EUR) and $3,000 (2,400 EUR).
For some reason, Delisle wanted to get out of the deal in 2009, but that didn’t work for the Russians, so they threatened him by sending a picture of his daughter while walking to school.
Authorities caught onto him after his GRU handler asked him to meet in Brazil. The Russians told him that they wanted him to be the one who dealt with all their Canadian secret operatives.
For his services, he was given $10,000 (8,000 EUR) in cash and $40,000 (32,000 EUR) on a pre-paid credit card. Initially, they gave him the entire amount in cash, but they had to put some of it on a payment card because Delisle couldn’t get the money past Canadian security.
Even though the amount of cash he was carrying when he arrived in Canada was only $10,000 (8,000 EUR), it still raised some suspicion. He was allowed to enter, but customs agents alerted the military, who launched an investigation.
The man pleaded guilty to all the charges brought against him, his sentencing hearing being scheduled for January 10 and January 11, 2013.