BOSTON (BNO NEWS) -- A Massachusetts man has pleaded guilty to a charge of foreign economic espionage for exchanging sensitive information with a person who he believed was an Israeli spy, officials said on Tuesday. The man worked for Akamai when he committed the crimes. Elliot Doxer, 43, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper to a charge of providing trade secrets over an 18-month period from the finance department of Akamai Technologies to an undercover federal agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.
In 2006, Doxer sent an email to the Israeli consulate in Boston stating that he worked in the finance department of Akamai Technologies and was willing to provide any information that might help Israel. His main desire "was to help our homeland and our war against our enemies," Doxer said in later communications.
From October 2007 to March 2009, Doxer exchanged information with a federal agent posing as an undercover Israeli intelligence officer. Among this information was an extensive list of Akamai's customers, its contracts, as well as a list of the company's employees, including their contact information.
The former Akamai worker also described the company's security systems and said he could travel to Israel or support special and sensitive operations in his local area if needed. The information was never in real danger of actual exposure because it was disclosed only to an undercover agent.
U.S. District Judge Casper has scheduled the sentencing for November 30 when Doxer could face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a three-year term of supervised release and a $500,000 fine. Doxer's prosecution is the first in Massachusetts for foreign economic espionage and only the eighth in the United States.
Akamai Technologies is a content delivery network which provides cloud-based services to optimize web and mobile content applications, including HD video and secure e-commerce. It had a revenue of just over a billion U.S. dollars in 2010.
