The Justice Department, on Sunday, reported that a U.S. Navy nuclear engineer and his wife had been detained after leaking secret information about nuclear submarines to an undercover FBI agent who disguised himself as a foreign country’s operative.
Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and his wife Diana, 45, face espionage-related charges after selling information for nearly the past year to a foreign power representative, authorities said in a criminal complaint.
According to the FBI, Toebbe sent a package containing Navy documents to a foreign government in April 2020. The documents detailed Toebbe’s interest in selling information on Virginia-class nuclear submarine reactors. The unidentified foreign government, however, tuned the documents to the US in December 2020 after sitting on them for months.
Toebbe and his wife were subsequently arrested in West Virginia on Saturday after authorities found out they had placed a removable memory card at a prearranged ‘dead drop’ in the state, the Justice Department reported. In other words, Toebbe hid encrypted memory cards in a chewing gum packet, a peanut butter sandwich, and a band-aid wrapper.
He has served as the top officer for 15 months in the office of the chief of naval operations. Toebbe can sell secret information about nuclear submarines because he has worked on naval atomic propulsion since 2012. His job was to handle private technology devised to reduce the noise and vibration of submarines, factors that can easily give away their location.
One of the documents detailed Toebbe’s hope in the foreign government’s ability to extract him and his family if they were ever tracked down. He also stated in one message that he and his family have passports and cash set aside for this purpose.
Toebbe, in his letter, provided instructions on how to conduct the furtive relationship. According to authorities, he wrote:
‘I apologize for this poor translation into your language. Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax.’
However, an undercover FBI agent who posed as a representative for the foreign government contacted Toebbe and agreed to pay for the information he was selling. At first, Toebbe was cautious about trusting the undercover agent and, however, came to trust him because of the huge amount he was going to be paid. The emails show that Toebbe agreed to receive $100,00 in crypto and was paid $70,000 before he was caught.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, a ‘signal’ to Toebbe has also been arranged by the FBI from the country’s embassy in Washington. However, it is unclear how the FBI was able to arrange such a signal. The FBI, in June 2021, said that Toebbe was sent $10,000 from the undercover agent who described the money as a sign of good faith and trust.
Weeks later, Toebbe and his wife Diana arrived at an agreed-upon location in West Virginia for the exchange without knowing they were being watched by federal agents. Diana appeared to act as a lookout for her husband during a dead-drop operation for which the FBI paid $20,000.
According to court documents, a blue memory card wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a peanut butter sandwich had been recovered by the FBI. A navy subject matter expert determined the memory card’s contents to include design elements and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors, according to the Justice Department.
Similar dead-drop exchanges have been conducted by the FBI over the next several months:
Including one in August in Virginia in which Toebbe was paid roughly $70,000 and concealed in a chewing gum package a memory card that contained schematic designs for the Virginia-class submarine, according to the Daily Mail.
Toebbe states in one message that the information ‘reflects decades of U.S. Navy ‘lessons learned’ that will help keep your sailors safe.’ There are currently six countries that operate nuclear-powered submarines — China, France, India, Russia, the UK, and the US. Moreover, Australia will receive help from the US and UK to deploy nuclear-powered submarines.
Toebbe and his wife are expected to initially appear in court on Tuesday in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
