Real Life Spy Story: A Navy Nuclear Engineer and His Wife Were Caught Allegedly Trying To Sell Classified Nuclear Intel In A Half-Eaten Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich For $100K In Crypto

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The Daily Beast - An undercover FBI agent exposed a Navy nuclear engineer’s alleged intentions to leak information about American nuclear-powered submarines to foreign governments, The Washington Post reported. On Saturday, Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and his wife, Diana, 45, were arrested in West Virginia for espionage-related charges. 

The court papers allege that the engineer then sent a package to what he thought was a foreign government, but in actuality turned out to be an FBI agent, containing samples of U.S. secrets along with instructions for how to further their communication. 

“Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency,” read the letter in the package. “I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax.” Toebbe and his wife were charged with conspiracy to communicate restricted data and communication of restriction data.

You know how, every now and then — once in a blue moon — you have one of those days at work where everything just sort of lines up and works out on its own: your meetings get cancelled randomly last-minute, the boss takes a surprise day off, you find an over-eager intern to delegate your stupid meaningless busy-work off to. You almost can’t even enjoy it knowing how it’s just one day and everything will go back to normal tomorrow, but damn it feels good to be able to kick your feet up and dick around on the internet and head home early like the old days?

That’s what I imagine life was like at the FBI when they stumbled on this engineer idiot and his dope wife trying to sell classified Navy intel to a foreign country.

Investigators say someone sent a package on April 1, 2020, attempting to establish "a covert relationship" with a representative from the foreign country. The package listed a return address in Pittsburgh, Penn.

"The package contained U.S. Navy documents, a letter containing instructions, and an SD card containing specific instructions on how COUNTRY1 should respond using an encrypted communication platform, and additional documents," investigators said in a court filing.

"I apologize for this poor translation into your language. Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency," the letter, handed over to the FBI, stated. "I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax." [WaPo]

Hey buddy word of advice (I've seen a lot of movies), before you reveal your plan and admit to anything make VERY sure that who you're talking to is a real pers.....

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.

…on. 

So from day one, the feds were all over this guy. But what was Jonathan even trying to sell? 

Well. Remember that big thing in the news about submarines and nuclear energy and the pissy French being pissy with us? You probably wondered if "Australia" was included on the chyron as a mistake? 

That. 

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 technology for these $3 billion sub reactors that we just offered to Australia to deal with the Chinese threat in the Indo-Pacific. Which, if I were the Aussies, I would now take a very hard second look at, seeing the brainpower of who was working on it. Just a fresh set of eyes. 

The complete scope of Toebbe's master plan apparently involved $100 grand in crypto and…nope that's it, just the crypto.

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.

Always prudent to never dream too big.

In the end, while I would have extended the operation indefinitely and just continued fucking with this guy for like, decades, the FBI went a different route and put him out of his misery quickly.  It's possible their hand was forced when he put a USB stick in his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

The FBI later recovered the package Toebbe left behind and inside found a 16-gigabyte data card. The card, authorities said, “was wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a half of a peanut butter sandwich. The half sandwich was housed inside of a plastic bag.”

Some things you kind of have a duty to share with the world.

Oh and as for the wife — she was given the role traditionally given to the person you really didn't want to know about your plan but you're too stupid to keep it hidden so you have to pretend you really needed them and planned on inviting them the whole time:  the lookout. 

 Toebbe dropped off the materials (which he allegedly hid in half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, of all places) while his wife acted as a lookout, according to the criminal complaint.

I mean Jonathan Toebbe is the bad guy in the shitty movie who decides that instead of flying off to safety with his 1 gajillion dollars and uranium cubes and plausible deniability from his genius master plan, he’s going to detail the entire thing and how it was executed to the scrappy underdog main character with an old-school tape recorder in his pocket and an open line to an intrepid Times reporter played by Meryl Streep.

He laid EVERYTHING out for these guys.

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.”

I’m sure it takes some level of intelligence to become a nuclear engineer with the United States Navy. It must be one of those “book smarts” types of intelligence, I guess would be the only explanation; for thinking you could just stick a 16-gig data card in your PB&J (well, half of it at least…you work up an appetite, plotting treason), throw it in a box, write TO: FOREIGN HOSTILE COUNTRY (RUSSIA OR CHINA PREFERABLY PLZ), and then believe the WhatsApp message you get 12 hours later from BadGuy.DefNotACop87 is from a bad guy who is definitely not a cop.

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

All in all, things didn't end up going the Toebbe couples' way, but hey, at least they get to face treason charges. 

Those are like misdemeanors right?

PS,

Ok I saw this tidbit after the fact — maybe I was a little quick on the trigger judging the traitor.

…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.

I guess if I had 10 grand hit my bank account and got a signal from inside the fucking embassy in Washington DC, I'd maybe also believe BadGuy.DefNotACop87 too.

Reporting via NPR, The Daily Beast, Washington Post