Defection Scandal
From FEInfobase
The Tal Shiar Defection Scandal of 2382 was just one of several devastating setbacks that plagued the troubled agency in the early 2380s. Two months before the beginning of the Borg War, Vedok Deailor and his family defected to the Federation with the assistance of a Starfleet team. At the time of his defection, Vedok was one of four Directorate Committee Heads within the Tal Shiar. Only the chief of the Tal Shiar and his deputy were senior to the Committee Heads.
Vedok began to become disgruntled with the Romulan government in the mid 2370's, feeling that they were being too reluctant about Re-Unification with the Vulcans. Eventually, his frustration spurred him to action, and he discreetly began searching for a way to force the Senate into moving towards Re-Unification. Eventually his actions were discovered by Koval. Instead of exposing and arresting Vedok, Koval took him into his confidence and built up trust between them before finally revealing himself to be a Federation spy. Vedok was deeply shaken by this revelation, but agreed to work with Koval.
In December of 2381, Vedok began to fear that the other Committee Heads suspected him of collaborating with the Federation. His fears were borne out when a rival Committee Head accused him of being a spy in a closed door meeting of senior Tal Shiar officials. Vedok's friend, mentor, and fellow Committee Head Talis Sciven vigorously defended Vedok, and the motion to have him arrested and tried for treason was defeated. Two days later, Vedok asked Koval to help him defect, fearing that the lives of his family were at risk. Koval agreed and contacted Starfleet, who in turn ordered Admiral Falco Tauvits of the USS Thunderchild to oversee the operation. Tauvit's Chief of Intelligence, Lt. Commander Ross Taben, lead the mission into Romulan space and landed on Romulus in 2382.
The mission was almost a disaster from the start. Malfunctioning ECM equipment briefly exposed the runabout the insertion team was using to the Romulan capitol defense grid, alerting them to the intruder's presence. The team was forced to land on the outskirts of a agricultural community in the southern hemisphere for a week while permanent repairs to the ECM suite were completed. A dangerous low altitude flight allowed the runabout to infiltrate the capital city's perimeter, where the team hid in a warehouse rented by a Starfleet Intelligence front company while they finalized the last phase of the operation. Ross made contact with Vedok and found to his horror that the man had gotten cold feet. Vedok explained that in the time since his last contact with Starfleet, no further actions had been taken against him or his family. He had managed to fake some evidence of an unintentional intelligence leak that explained away the incidents that had lead to suspicion against him in the first place, and he no longer thought it necessary to uproot his family and abandon his homeland to save his life. He also informed Ross that he would no longer assist Starfleet Intelligence, the risks were simply too high.
Ross refused to accept this, and three days later he sent a message to the other Committee Heads just after Vedok left the Tal Shiar headquarters building in the evening. The transmission was a letter informing them of Vedok's treachery and advising them that he planned to defect within the next month. Ross signed the message with Vedok's wife's DNA signature and ID code. He had kidnapped Vedok's family after he left for work in the morning and was holding them in the runabout. Talis Sciven confronted Vedok in his home, moments after his arrived and discovered his family missing, demanding to know if the letter was true. Ross stepped out of a closet behind Sciven and slit his throat, then gave Vedok an ultimatum; defect now or explain to the Tal Shiar why his wife had sent a letter exposing him and how Talis ended up bleeding to death in his living room. Vedok chose defection.
Somehow Talis's body was found and transported to a hospital before he bled to death and he survived. When the Senate learned of the disaster, Talis accepted full responsibility for the whole debacle, claiming that it was his tutelage that allowed Vedok to get into such a position of influence. This act of political suicide probably saved the career of Alak tr'Kervek, then the head of the Tal Shiar.
Ross would later be awarded the Intelligence Star for his actions. The exact details of the mission, such as Koval's assistance, would remain unknown to the Romulan government until they joined the Federation five years later in 2387. The operation still remains classified to the general public.