Navy Engineer Indicted for Trying to Steal Plans for the USS Gerald R. Ford

Mostafa Ahmed Awwad, a 35-year-old employee of the Navy, was indicted Friday for trying to steal plans for the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest nuclear aircraft carrier, to send to the Egyptian government.

Awwad is officially charged with two counts of attempting to export defense articles and technical data. He faces up to 20 years in prison for each count.

According to an FBI affidavit, Awwad began working for the Navy in February as a general engineer at the Navy’s Norfolk shipyard. An undercover FBI agent speaking Arabic contacted Awwad in September and asked to meet.

The next day, Awwad met the agent, posing as an Egyptian intelligence officer, and pledged to obtain military technology schematics, including designs of the Gerald R. Ford. Egypt and the United States have long been military allies, and Egypt isn’t generally thought to have a robust intelligence gathering operation in the United States.

Over the course of the next two months, Awwad detailed his plan to bypass the Navy’s computer security, asked for $1,500 dollars to buy a pinhole camera to photograph material in the shipyard, and gave the FBI passport photos to get a fraudulent Egyptian passport.

In October, Awwad left a one-terabyte external hard drive at a dead-drop site. In late November, he was seen taking pictures of schematics of the aircraft carrier.

Awwad appeared in court Friday and is expected to appear for a detention hearing December 10.