UEE TIED TO GOLDFINCH
By Bernadette Ziegler Senate Correspondent
PRIME, TERRA: It has been over six months since the universe first learned of the unconscionable attack perpetrated against respected ship manufacturer Origin Jumpworks, when billions of credits in research and design documentation linked with Origin’s “Project Goldfinch” were publicly leaked. Since then, the Advocacy, in conjunction with local authorities, have been conducting an exhaustive search to find those responsible for this heinous crime. To date, this investigation has resulted in zero formal charges filed. Many would blame the Agents assigned to the case for this lack of progress, or attribute it to the cleverness of the criminals involved, but recently uncovered facts point to a possible darker and much more significant truth: the government itself may be behind the corporate espionage.
Documents provided to the Terra Gazette by an anonymous source, and verified by our research staff, have revealed a tangled web that leads back to a single source: the UEE Senate’s Office of Executive Services (OES), a little-known bureaucratic department whose public facing role has been to collate informational packets for Senate members on various research topics. For example, if a Senator wants to know about average rainfalls or how many times they were mentioned on this season of ShowDown, they would turn to Executive Services, who would then condense the data into an easily digestible form. It is worth noting that the OES does not claim to conduct any research itself, but rather handles all “processing, collection and repackaging of existing information.” That description, published in the 2788 UEE line item budget upon the department’s establishment, has remained unchanged in the years since.
On 2944-11-04 SET, Rigs Bakas, a former FTL employee and Navy starman, was temporarily held by the Advocacy for questioning with regards to the Goldfinch leak. Released with no charges filed, Mr. Bakas was found dead three weeks later. The official cause of death was listed by the coroner’s office as accidental drowning. The documents provided by our source showed that not only did Mr. Bakas have access to the Goldfinch files while working at FTL, but he was receiving regular payments through a dummyblind transfer into an offworld banking account from a company named Terran Aquatics. A company that as far as our inquires have shown, existed for two sole purposes: sending funds to Mr. Bakas and receiving funds from one Elanore Calgory. Ms. Calgory is a former clerk who died in 2923 and who, our investigation has shown, has continued to receive a small fortune in weekly salary from the OES to this very day.
All of this leads us to ask why was Mr. Bakas never formally arrested? Why was Mr. Bakas receiving payments indirectly from the OES? If the OES job is to collect data, what data was Mr. Bakas collecting for them? Was Mr. Bakas’ death more than an accident? Unfortunately, at this point, there are more questions than answers, but the fact remains that the OES had ongoing ties to this suspect and that alone is cause for concern.
When contacted the OES declined to comment. No point of contact for Terran Aquatics has been located.
The Terra Gazette posts this information not to be sensational, but because only by bringing these questions to the public do we believe they have a chance to be answered. The Senate and the Advocacy have an obligation to look into this issue immediately.