US Navy engineer and his wife arrested trying to sell nuclear submarine secrets

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A US navy nuclear engineer and his wife have been charged with trying to sell nuclear secrets to what they thought was a foreign state. Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana were arrested in West Virginia on Saturday, the Justice Department announced.

They allegedly tried to sell nuclear submarine design data, hidden in a peanut butter sandwich, to someone they thought represented another country. In fact, it was an undercover FBI agent. According to the statement, Mr Toebbe and his partner - 42 and 45 respectively - have now been charged under the Atomic Energy Act.

Mr Toebbe worked in the US Navy's nuclear propulsion programme and had national security clearance. The Justice Department said that in April 2020 he sent a package to a foreign government containing restricted data and a message suggesting a covert relationship, so that they could buy more data from him.

He then allegedly began writing to an individual by encrypted email. While he thought this person represented the foreign government, they were actually an FBI agent, the affidavit said. After several months, the accused couple allegedly made a deal to share secret information in exchange for around $100,000 (£73,000) in cryptocurrency. In June this year, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe travelled to West Virginia to drop off the data.

With Diana acting as a lookout, Jonathan "placed an SD card concealed within half a peanut butter sandwich" at a determined location, the affidavit said. After the agent collected the card, they sent payment and received a decryption key to access the SD card. On it was restricted data "related to submarine nuclear reactors".

Mr Toebbe then performed a second so-called dead drop - this time hidden inside a chewing gum packet - in August, with yet more secret data on it. FBI agents then arrested the couple on Saturday, during a third dead drop.

The couple are set to appear in federal court on 12 October.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58863678
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: US Navy engineer and his wife arrested trying to sell nuclear submarine secrets

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WaPo has more information.
The court papers say that in December 2020, an FBI official received a package that had been sent to the foreign country containing U.S. Navy documents, a letter and instructions for how to conduct encrypted communications with the person offering the information.
The court papers show an email conversation that began nearly a year ago in which Toebbe allegedly discussed espionage tradecraft and payments with someone he thought was a foreign spy but was in fact an undercover FBI agent.

“Your thoughtful plans indicate you are not amateur,” the FBI wrote to Toebbe. “This relationship requires mutual comfort.”

The emails show that at first Toebbe remained cautious but that he came to trust the undercover agent in part because of the money he was paid and because the FBI arranged to “signal” Toebbe from the country’s embassy in Washington over the Memorial Day weekend. The papers do not describe how the FBI was able to arrange such a signal.

Toebbe allegedly asked for $100,000 in cryptocurrency, saying, “I understand this is a large request. However, please remember I am risking my life for your benefit and I have taken the first step. Please help me trust you fully.”

The undercover FBI agent persuaded Toebbe to conduct a “dead drop” of information in late June in West Virginia’s Jefferson County after Toebbe received about $10,000 worth of cryptocurrency, according to the charging papers.
Authorities said another payment of $20,000 followed, and the dead drops continued, with data cards hidden in a Band-Aid wrapper and a chewing gum package.
After receiving $70,000 in cryptocurrency, Toebbe provided a decryption key to read the contents of one of the data cards, officials said.
The information Toebbe turned over included details of the design, operations and performance of Virginia-class nuclear submarine reactors, according to court papers. Virginia-class subs carry cruise missiles and incorporate “the latest in stealth, intelligence-gathering, and weapons system technology,” according to court papers. Each costs about $3 billion to build.

The court papers note that Toebbe, who was on active duty in the Navy until 2017, had worked on nuclear propulsion for submarines, a technology that the United States recently agreed to provide to Australia. Previously, the United States had only shared the technology with Britain, also a partner in the deal with Australia. The agreement scuttled an Australian deal with France, igniting a diplomatic row between Washington and Paris.
The court papers do not identify the foreign country that Toebbe allegedly thought was buying the secrets, nor do they explain how the FBI came to possess in December 2020 the package Toebbe first sent to the foreign country, but the filing notes the postmark on the package was many months earlier — April 1, 2020.
In total, Toebbe allegedly provided thousands of pages of documents, and officials said his espionage ambitions had been building for years.

“The information was slowly and carefully collected over several years in the normal course of my job to avoid attracting attention and smuggled past security checkpoints a few pages at a time,” Toebbe allegedly wrote to the foreign country, adding that he no longer had access to classified data but could answer any technical questions the foreign country might have.

He also allegedly wrote that he hoped the foreign government would be able to extract him and his family if he was ever discovered, adding “we have passports and cash set aside for this purpose.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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