안보의 허점을 파고든 ‘드론 스파이’ 사건과 사법부의 엄중한 경고 > K-wave Trends

The incident began with the systematic and repeated filming of military facilities by Chinese students from March 2023 to June 2024. They filmed the Busan Naval Operations Command area without permission a total of nine times with drones and mobile phones, securing a large amount of photo and video data amounting to approximately 12GB. Of particular note is the sensitivity at the time of shooting. They boldly flew drones when the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, a key strategic asset in ROK-U.S. joint exercises, arrived in port, as well as on days when the then-president personally visited the site and encouraged the soldiers. The timing is too elaborate to be considered a mere coincidence or personal hobby, making it difficult to erase suspicions that this was a planned action aimed at gathering military intelligence.

During the trial, the defendants strongly denied the charge of general treason, claiming that they were only interested in military culture and had no intention of harming the Republic of Korea. However, the 5th Criminal Division of the Busan District Court dismissed these excuses and sentenced him to prison. The court clearly drew the line that in order to establish a general crime of transfer, a special subjective intention to benefit an enemy country is not necessarily required. As a result, it was proven that their actions posed a significant risk that could harm the country's military interests, and the court regarded this as a direct challenge to the security of the Republic of Korea. Mr. A, the main culprit, was sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison, and a strict judicial judgment was made, including being detained by the court due to concerns about flight.

An interesting point in this ruling is the legal interpretation of whether a ‘warship’ can be considered a military facility. The defendants argued that warships such as aircraft carriers are not included in military facilities under the law, and the court ruled in favor of the defendants on this point. But this did not excuse the crime. Even though the warship itself is not a facility, filming the entire military base where the warship is anchored clearly constitutes a violation of the Military Bases and Military Facilities Protection Act. The court ruled that the defendants' guilt did not change regardless of whether or not they filmed the warship, because the act of filming the base already exceeded the scope of the law's prohibition. This is a passage that shows how tightly our law is setting up a net to protect the security scene.

Behind the incident, there is a potential threat of leakage of the footage. The fact that the main culprit, Mr. A, shared some of the photos he took with his acquaintances through Chinese messengers made the impact of this incident even bigger. The court considered the fact that conclusive evidence that the film had actually been leaked to enemy countries or unfriendly organizations has not yet been revealed as a factor in sentencing, but this is only the current situation. The anxiety of not knowing when, where, and how the vast amount of data already secured may be misused has still not been resolved. Considering similar cases that occurred in the Suwon District Court, we cannot rule out the possibility that domestic and foreign forces have already become routine in their intelligence collection activities targeting our military facilities.