The desire to create a flight simulator can lead straight to an American prison. Oleg Tishchenko, a Russian, has been arrested in the United States, accused of plotting against the United States, smuggling classified information and violating the local law on the export of weapons. All this is for buying and selling instructions for USAF fighter jets on eBay through third parties.
Cover instructions for F-16C/D
According to the Standard-Examiner, Tishchenko is being held under arrest in Utah.
He was extradited there from Georgia this year, although charges were brought against him back in 2016.
Tishchenko completely rejects them. According to him, he is an employee of the Eagle Dynamics game studio and bought manuals in order to create an ultra-realistic flight simulator.
In 2011-2015, his collection included manuals for the F-16, F-35, F-22 and A-10. He bought them bypassing international restrictions, by agreement with third parties — participants of the video game forum in Runet. Tishchenko told them that he needed maintenance materials for the F-16, A-10 and other aircraft for work. A resident of Texas bought several lots for it and soon transported them to Moscow.
But Tishchenko was engaged not only in buying manuals. He put the instructions for the F-16 on eBay for sale to citizens of Cyprus, Japan, Australia and other countries.
At some point, the American special services got involved in the case, which gave their agent for the buyer of the manuals. He contacted Tishchenko at the same Russian forum, hoping to gather evidence against him. It was not possible to arrest Tishchenko before his ill—fated arrival in Georgia, a country that has an agreement with the United States on the extradition of potential criminals.
On August 19, Tishchenko will appear in court in the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. He could face at least 10 years in prison. It should be noted that an assistant from Texas was also involved in this case. But just this week, all charges against him were dropped.
So far, Eagle Dynamics has not responded to Kotaku‘s request whether Tishchenko is really their employee. App2Top.ru I also sent a request to the studio. At the same time, Eagle Dynamics commented on the story on their forum:
Given the seriousness of the situation Eagle Dynamics has been involved in, we intend to issue an official statement after consulting with lawyers. Until then, all our plans for the future remain unchanged. We have nothing to say on this issue until the official statement is released.