Why espionage is to powerful

[spacefan]

I'm in the middle of playing a rather lengthy game, large galaxy, lots of enemies, there's 9 left right now. Anyway, I've been getting zapped by enemy intel operations, left and right, so I've been building up my intel facilites, but this latest one that happened to me, doesn't make much sense.

I have Alpha Fleet, in a nebulae system, in the fleet is a ship Jaguar 1, my only minesweeper in the fleet. So an enemy manages to cause that crew to mutiny, and vanish, because we are in a nebulae.

First of all, how did he find my ship if I'm in a nebulae, second of all, if my ship was just there, I doubt other ships lose track of what happens with their fleet ships even in a nebulae.

How in the world, does a widely hated empire incite the members of a crew in a nebulae to break off and join their empire, and manage to completely escape scott free.

Basically they are going to get a huge amount of techs if they analyze that ship, because I have 188 tech levels and the next best has around 58.

I think intel operations need to be more difficult, and have a chance to be foiled, behind just standard counterespionage
I doubt a captain is just going to decide on a whim to join the hated Phong Confederation if he's been fighting them for years

I'm just glad they didn't take a main fighting ship.