A U.S. Navy nuclear engineer pleaded guilty on Monday Feb. 14, 2022, to a charge that he attempted to sell data related to the design of nuclear-powered warships to a foreign country in exchange for cryptocurrency.
Information on the charges and case against the engineer, Jonathan Toebbe, 43, of Annapolis, Maryland, were released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of West Virginia.
According to his plea agreement, Toebbe sent a package to a foreign government in April 2020 containing a sample of restricted data and instructions for setting up a covert communications line for purchasing the data.
Toebbe then reportedly began corresponding over encrypted emails with an individual he believed to be a representative of a foreign government. In reality, the representative was an undercover FBI agent who proceeded to communicate with Toebbe for several months on the basis of purchasing the data.
Maryland Nuclear Engineer Pleads Guilty to Espionage-Related Offense. https://t.co/zFfIO1Xb2c
— NDWVnews (@NDWVnews) February 14, 2022
Court documents note that the undercover FBI agent initially sent $10,000 USD in cryptocurrency to Toebbe as a “good faith” payment. Then, Toebbe reportedly left an SD card hidden inside a peanut butter sandwich at a dead drop location for the undercover agent to pick up.
After retrieving the SD card, the agent sent Toebbe another $20,000 in cryptocurrency and Toebbe emailed the agent a decryption key for the SD card. Upon review the SD card was revealed to contain restricted data on nuclear reactors.
Under the Atomic Energy Act laid out by the Department of Defense, “restricted data” in this case is data that concerns the design, manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, or the production of nuclear material for energy production.
Toebbe later made another SD card dead drop to the undercover agent, this time hidden inside a pack of chewing gum, in exchange for $70,000 cryptocurrency. That SD card was also confirmed to contain restricted data on nuclear material and reactors.
Toebbe was eventually arrested in October 2021 on charges of conspiring to communicate restricted data. Toebbe faced life in prison and a $100,000 fine, but after pleading guilty his sentence was lowered.
Toebbe now faces a minimum sentence of 12 and a half years in federal prison.
“Among the secrets the U.S. government most zealously protects are those related to the design of its nuclear-powered warships,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the release of Toebbe’s case. “The defendant was entrusted with some of those secrets and instead of guarding them, he betrayed the trust placed in him and conspired to sell them to another country for personal profit.”
