AF Veteran Held in Attempt to Sell Sensitive Data to Soviets

An Air Force veteran was arrested Friday on federal espionage charges for allegedly attempting to deliver classified information to the Soviet Union, the FBI said.

Ronald Craig Wolf, 34, of Dallas, was arrested at a Holiday Inn near Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport, said Bobby R. Gillham, special agent in charge of the bureau’s Dallas office. Wolf was taken before a federal magistrate, who ordered him held without bond until a hearing Wednesday.

The FBI’s investigation of Wolf, who served nearly seven years in the Air Force before being discharged in 1981, began in early March when agents learned that he was trying to sell sensitive classified information to the Soviet Union, Gillham said.

Following his discharge, Wolf worked as a car salesman but was unemployed at the time of the FBI investigation, Gillham said.

While in the Air Force, Wolf held a top secret clearance and received training in Russian. The federal complaint said he was discharged because of his “unsuitability for service due to financial irresponsibility.”

On five occasions, Wolf “engaged in conversations with a person he believed to be a representative of the Soviet Union assigned to the Soviet Embassy” in Washington, D.C., who was actually an undercover FBI agent, the complaint said.