Navy nuclear engineer and wife arrested for trying to sell submarine secrets to foreign power
CBSN
A Maryland-based Navy nuclear engineer and his wife have been arrested on charges of selling secret information about the design of nuclear power warships to someone they thought was a foreign power but was actually an undercover FBI agent.
The Justice Department claims Jonathan Toebbe, through his Pentagon-issued national security clearance, had access to restricted data about naval nuclear technology and used that access to send a package to a foreign government on April 1, 2020. After that, the affidavit alleged he began corresponding with someone he believed to be an agent of another country, but who was an undercover FBI agent. Court documents claim the Navy engineer agreed to sell this restricted data to the undercover agent for $10,000 in cryptocurrency.
Toebbe and his wife, Diana, then allegedly went to West Virginia, where the Navy engineer placed a memory card inside half a peanut butter sandwich, with his wife on the lookout. According to the Justice Department, the card contained restricted data about submarine nuclear reactors.
