(Newswire.net — December 7, 2014) — Yorktown, Va.– 35-years-old Naval officer Mostafa Ahmed Awwad was arrested as he tried to sell a new carrier schematics to an undercover FBI agent.
Under construction in Virginia, USS Ford is the lead ship in the Navy’s new class of carriers. The Ford stands 25 stories high and is three football fields long. Scheduled for delivery to the Navy in 2016, it is believed to be almost impossible to hurt. However, every system has its weak spot and Awwad thought he had found one.
To sink an aircraft carrier is extremely hard. To sink it with one missile is believed to be impossible. On Oct. 9 FBI’s affidavit says, Awwad gave the undercover drawings of the aircraft carrier that he said were top secret. During the meeting, “Awwad discussed where to strike the vessel with a missile in order to sink it,” the affidavit says.
The court documents do not reveal why Awwad was targeted, however, he was approached in September by an Arabic speaking undercover FBI agent named ‘Yousef’.
At the meeting Awwad asked for $1,500 to buy a tiny camera to enable him to photograph restricted material around the shipyard, according to the affidavit. Two weeks later, he retrieved $3,000 in cash left at the exchange location in the park. Awwad left behind a container with an external hard drive and two passport photos. The FBI later collected the containers.
The day after Thanksgiving, Awwad was observed in his Navy office as he, unfolded over the floor what appeared to be aircraft design schematics, and photographed it.
To photograph any Navy’s vessel is bad enough, Retired rear admiral Fred Metz, head of the Navy’s carrier and air station program until 1991, said. “But it’s worse to give away the Ford’s,” he said. “There is a whole lot of new technology on it we haven’t seen before.”
Upon his arrest, Awwad was accused of two counts of attempted exportation of defense articles and technical data, each punishable by 20 years in prison.
The court documents says Awwad was born in Saudia Arabia and married a US citizen in Cairo in 2007. After his marriage, he became an American citizen.