Bryan Minkyu Martin, a low-level sailor stationed at Ft. Bragg, sold dozens of classified documents to an FBI agent posing undercover as a foreign intelligence officer, Navy investigators wrote in an unsealed warrant obtained by The Associated Press.Martin, 22, a petty officer in the Navy, was taken into police custody on Dec. 5, though he has not yet been charged.
The warrant, filed by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, reveals that Martin engaged in multiple transactions with undercover agents, collecting $3500 for the sale of 51 secret documents.
He was paid $500 for secret documents in one meeting, and later given two payments of $1500 for even more files, according to the warrant. Of the 51 documents, "48 pages...were marked SECRET and three pages were marked TOP SECRET," the affidavit states, according to ABC News.
Martin, who began his Naval career in 2006, was given top secret clearance, according to the AP.
In his meetings with the FBI agents, the warrant states that Martin bragged he "could be very valuable" as a source of information over his likely 20-year future in the Navy, and also offered his access to classified network systems.
Though Martin's security clearance was "significantly higher" than [Bradley] Manning's, according to ABC News, officials believe the "leak" never made it past the FBI.
"Investigators have a high level of confidence that no classified informaition was actually delivered to any unauthorized persons and Martin is currently being held in the naval brig in Norfolk pending command's review of the investigative material," said Paul O'Donnell, a spokesman for NCIS, in a statement to ABC News.
More details from Military.com
According to a search warrant unsealed in federal court Friday, Martin sold secret and top secret documents in several staged buys of intelligence at two Spring Lake hotels.
According to the search warrant, Martin was assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg on Sept. 16. Two months later, on Nov. 15, Martin met an undercover FBI agent in the lobby of the Hampton Inn on Bragg Boulevard in Spring Lake, according to the warrant. The special agent, posing as a foreign intelligence officer, brought Martin to his room, where Martin discussed his access to military computer networks and classified networks, according to the warrant.
Martin also told the agent that he was seeking "longterm financial reimbursement," and that he could be very valuable over a 15- or 20-year career, which he expected would take him to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the warrant says.
Martin offered to bring the agent two documents at their next meeting and accepted $500 in cash from the agent, the warrant says.
At a meeting the next day at the same hotel, Martin produced two documents one labelled "secret" and the other "top secret" and accepted $1,500 in cash, the warrant says. He agreed to meet the agent again Nov. 19, when he produced 51 pages of secret and top secret documents, according to the warrant. He was paid another $1,500, according to the warrant.
Martin also failed to report the contacts to any member of his chain of command, the warrant says. The warrant authorized NCIS agents to search the room Martin was using at the Landmark Inn on Fort Bragg and his 2009 gold Nissan Altima. It does not address how Martin came under suspicion or how he came into contact with the undercover FBI agent.
Buice (Ed Buice, a public affairs specialist for the Naval Criminial Investigative Service) would not clarify the matter Friday night, but said, "We have a high level confidence that classified information was not delivered to any unauthorized person."
Martin enlisted in the Navy on Nov. 30, 2006, and completed basic training on July 20, 2007. He received a top secret clearance on Sept. 20, 2007, and was subsequently assigned to temporary duty with the Defense Intelligence Agency between May 9 and Aug. 22, according to the warrant.
A spokesman for the Army's Special Operations Command referred all questions to NCIS.