In Brief:
- A nuclear engineer and his wife were arrested for trying to sell highly sensitive information
- The transactions of cryptocurrencies worth more than $100k were made in exchange for Nuclear Secrets.
In Maryland, a nuclear engineer and his wife were arrested for trying to sell highly sensitive information about Nuclear warship designs to someone they thought represented a foreign power, but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
Diana Toebbe, 45, and Jonathan Toebbe, 42, were arrested on Saturday, Oct. 9, by the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).
According to the criminal complaint, the Toebbes allegedly violated the Atomic Energy Act.
The US Department of Justice media release said that Toebbe held a national security clearance and was assigned to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.
As a result of that clearance, Toebbe was able to access data related to sensitive military design elements, operating parameters, and performance characteristics of the warship’s reactors.
Toebbe is accused of continuing this correspondence with the foreign buyer (who turned out to be an FBI agent) for several months, ultimately leading to an agreement to sell restricted data in exchange for cryptocurrency worth thousands of dollars.
Toebbe received $10,000 in cryptocurrency on June 8 as a “good faith” payment. The Toebbes traveled to West Virginia on June 26. As Diana Toebbe served as a lookout, Jonathan Toebbe placed the SD card inside a half peanut butter sandwich at a prearranged “dead drop” location.
As per the affidavit, Toebbe sent the undercover agent a $20,000 cryptocurrency payment after retrieving the SD card. In return, Toebbe emailed to the undercover agent the decryption key for the SD card.
An examination of the SD card revealed that it contained restricted information regarding submarine nuclear reactors.
Jonathan Toebbe made another “dead drop” of SD cards on Aug. 28, hiding the cards in chewing gum packages. After paying him $70,00 in cryptocurrency, the FBI received a key to decrypt the cards. It, too, contained restricted information about submarine nuclear reactors.
Toebbe placed a second SD card at a pre-arranged “dead drop” at the second location in West Virginia on Oct. 9, and the FBI arrested both Jonathan and Diana that day.
Earlier an Ethereum developer Virgil Grifth, was also charged with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Power Act.
