Police in Dubai have arrested a Russian citizen for filming several naked women on a high-rise balcony in the city, a Russian diplomat said Tuesday, after footage of the nude photo shoot went viral and prompted a crackdown in the Gulf Arab sheikhdom.
More than a dozen foreign women who had posed naked in the photo shoot were detained, but only the photographer carried Russian citizenship, Ivan Gubanov, the Russian vice consul in Dubai, told The Associated Press.
The photographer's name was not released and the nationalities of the women were not immediately known. Gubanov referred further questions on criminal proceedings to the Dubai police, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this week, Dubai police announced they had arrested a group on debauchery charges over the video showing naked women posing in broad daylight on a balcony overlooking the upscale Marina neighborhood. The footage came as a shock in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms with strict rules governing public behavior and expression, which are based on Islamic law, or Shariah.
Violations of the public decency law in the UAE, including for nudity and other “lewd behavior,” carry penalties of up to six months in prison and a fine of 5,000 dirhams ($1,360). The sharing of pornographic material is also punishable with prison time and hefty fines. The country’s majority state-owned telecom companies block access to pornographic websites.
Foreigners, who make up some 90% of the UAE's population of over 9 million, previously have landed in jail for their comments online, as well as for offenses considered tame in the West, like kissing in public.
A former U.S. Navy sailor convicted of selling technical and operating manuals for ships and operating systems to an intelligence officer working for China was sentenced Monday to more than 16 years in prison, prosecutors said.
A federal judge in San Diego sentenced Jinchao Wei, 25, to 200 months. A federal jury convicted Wei in August of six crimes, including espionage. He was paid more than $12,000 for the information he sold, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
Wei, an engineer for the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, was one of two California-based sailors charged on Aug. 3, 2023, with providing sensitive military information to China. The other, Wenheng Zhao, was sentenced to more than two years in 2024 after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of receiving a bribe in violation of his official duties.
U.S. officials have for years expressed concern about the espionage threat they say the Chinese government poses, bringing criminal cases in recent years against Beijing intelligence operatives who have stolen sensitive government and commercial information, including through illegal hacking.
Wei was recruited via social media in 2022 by an intelligence officer who portrayed himself as a naval enthusiast working for the state-owned China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, prosecutors said.
Evidence presented in court showed Wei told a friend that the person was “extremely suspicious” and that it was “quite obviously” espionage. Wei disregarded the friend's advice to delete the contact and instead moved conversations with the intelligence officer to a different encrypted messaging app Wei believed was more secure, prosecutors said.
Over the course of 18 months, Wei sent the officer photos and videos of the Essex, advised him of the location of various Navy ships and told him about the Essex's defensive weapons, prosecutors said.
Wei sold the intelligence officer 60 technical and operating manuals, including those for weapons control, aircraft and deck elevators. The manuals contained export control warnings and detailed the operations of multiple systems aboard the Essex and similar ships.
He was a petty officer second class, which is a enlisted sailor's rank.
The Navy's website says the Essex is equipped to transport and support a Marine Corps landing force of over 2,000 troops during an air and amphibious assault.
In a letter to the judge before sentencing, Wei apologized and said he shouldn’t have shared anything with the person who he had considered a friend. Wei said “introversion and loneliness” clouded his judgment.
FILE -In this aerial photo taken Aug. 2, 2014, the U.S. Navy USS Essex is shown docked near downtown Seattle during the annual Seafair summer festival. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
