The couple, who thought sell information to a foreign government, was actually addressed to an FBI agent, who remunerated them with cryptomonnies.
Le Monde with AFP
Jonathan and Diana Toebbe live in Annapolis, Maryland. He, a nuclear engineer of the US Navy, held a national security clearance of the Ministry of Defense, giving it access to sensitive data.
With his wife, they were arrested on October 9th in Jefferson County County, West Virginia, and charged for sold secret information about nuclear submarines, for the benefit of a foreign government.
“For nearly a year,” writes the US Department of Justice, the 42-year-old Nuclear Engineer, Jonathan Toebbe, helped by his 45-year-old wife, Diana, “sold protected information on design Nuclear-propulsion warships to a person who he believed to be the representative of foreign power “, but who was” an FBI agent under cover “, detailed the Ministry of American Justice in its complaint , Sunday, October 10, without specifying what “foreign power” it was.
The complaint of the Federal Prosecutor of Northern Virginia district accuses more precisely the couple of having transmitted, “the, or around 26 June 2021”, “elements of military sensitive design, parameters of Operations and performance characteristics of Virginia class submarine reactors “, the latest generation of US fleet attack submersible. The suspect, an engineer employed in the navy nuclear propulsion program, “works since October 2012” on these issues, specifies the complaint.
Hundred thousand dollars in cryptomonnaires
The complaint of American justice tells how the FBI agent has joined Jonathan Toebbe, after the interception of a first package, including “navy documents” and a computer card giving the march to follow to establish contact on encrypted messaging. “I apologize for this bad translation in your language,” says the engineer in a “letter”, where he promises that “the information will be of great value for your nation” and that “it is not a question. No hoax “, details the complaint.
According to exchange extracts, the infiltrated agent offers “a gift” from the part “of a trusted friend in your country”, but the engineer, established in Annapolis, the capital of the state of the Maryland, are wary and wants to be paid in cryptomonni. Between June and August, the man received, in several installments, for $ 100,000 in cryptomonnays, in exchange for what he submitted confidential information related to nuclear reactors of submarines.
These data were contained in encrypted SD cards, deposited in processes agreed in advance, western virginia, and concealed in a peanut butter sandwich or in a chewing gum package. The engineer wrote it under the name “Alice”.
The couple was stopped by the FBI on Saturday after removing once again an SD card at a meeting place. Charged for violation of the Atomic Energy Act, the Tobbe will appear on Tuesday for the first time before the court in this case, before the Federal Court of Martinsburg, in West Virginia.
American nuclear submarines have recently been at the center of an important diplomatic crisis between Paris and Washington, when Australia has canceled a megacontrate with France to announce a strategic partnership with the United States and the United States. United. Denouncing a “betrayal”, a “duplicity” and a “contempt” on the part of his allies, Paris had recalled his ambassadors to Australia and the United States, an unprecedented gesture towards these two countries, on 17 September.