A Canadian naval intelligence officer pleaded guilty to handing over secrets to Russia, including New Zealand intelligence, in a four-year espionage operation.
Media reports say it involved access to a computer network shared with the United States and other allies.
The Canadian government, noting that proceedings were still subject to a publication ban, gave no details of the evidence against Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle. However, it confirmed that the 41-year-old had pleaded guilty to espionage on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
Delisle is the first person charged under a new secrecy law enacted after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, and will be sentenced in January next year. He could receive up to a life sentence under the secrecy law.
Some Canadian media outlets have published extensive details from previous proceedings in a Nova Scotia provincial court. Delisle worked at an intelligence facility called Trinity at the naval dockyard in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with access to secret data from NATO.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) said Delisle walked into the Russian embassy in Ottawa in 2007, asked to meet someone from the GRU - Russia's military intelligence organisation - and offered to sell it secrets. The Globe and Mail newspaper said Delisle had "offered to betray his country for cash."
The media outlets said Delisle earned about C$3000 a month from his Russian spy masters by gathering information on a computer system known as Stone Ghost which links information from the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Delisle would go to work armed with a thumb drive, download information from the system and deliver it to the Russians on a monthly basis, they said.
The CBC said Delisle wanted to end the relationship with the Russians in 2009, but chose not to after his handlers sent him a picture of his daughter walking to school. Shortly after, he was told to meet his GRU handler in Brazil where he was given $50,000 in debit cards and cash, it said.
The money reportedly raised suspicions among Canadian customs officers at the Halifax airport. They allowed him to re-enter Canada, but tipped off the Canadian military about their concerns. The military and police launched an investigation which lead to a raid on his house in Halifax in December 2011. He was arrested a month later.
CBC reporter Stephen Puddicombe was in court on Wednesday and told Radio New Zealand's Checkpoint programme that Delisle had all kinds of opportunities to find out things about military movements and about the allies that came through the Stone Ghost computer.
Officials have not revealed what information Delisle had access to, but his arrest was the subject of high-level talks between Australia and Canada and was discussed at a secret international conference in New Zealand this year, the ABC reports.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key would not confirm in July this year whether Canadian authorities had contacted the Government about the matter.
