A good couple in all respects, living in a somewhat sad house in the suburb of Annapolis (Maryland) with their children aged 11 and 15, who transfers atomic secrets to a foreign power: we are not in a remake of the series on pro-Russian spies The Americans, but in real life. That of Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana, accused of having wanted to transmit ultra-confidential files on the engines of American atomic submarines, which should equip future Australian submarines. The two suspects were arrested by the FBI on October 9 and charged with espionage by a grand jury on Tuesday October 19.
The case, worthy of a spy novel, begins in December 2020: the FBI is informed by a foreign power – but obviously friendly – that an individual contacted it in April 2020 and offered it secret documents of the US Navy. “I apologize for this poor translation into your language. Please forward this letter to your military security agency. I believe this information will be of great use to your country. This is not a hoax ”, writes the individual on Proton secure messaging.
Immediately, on December 26, the FBI contacted the mysterious emissary, posing as a representative of the foreign power. The man is suspicious, he refuses any one-on-one meeting, is reluctant to put documents in a mailbox, for fear of being trapped. Confidence is established when the FBI makes him a first payment of 10,000 dollars (8,600 euros) in Monero cryptocurrency and sends him a mysterious physical “signal” during a trip to Washington, from the premises of the Embassy of the United Kingdom. foreign power which collaborated in the affair.
A memory card in a sandwich
Appointment is made to file the first documents in West Virginia on June 26. A man arrives with a woman and at 9.44 a.m. deposits a 16 gigabit memory card, protected by plastic film, between two slices of bread in a peanut butter sandwich. The couple roam around until 11:22 am, obviously to check that they are not being followed, and leave in the car, a BMW mini Cooper.
The FBI identifies Jonathan Toebbe, 42, a US Navy nuclear engineer, approved “top secret” by the Pentagon and “Q” by the Department of Energy. Since 2012, he has worked in the Reactors Division of the Virginia Class Nuclear Attack Submarines and has worked to reduce noise and vibration. The accompanist is none other than his wife, Diana, 45, a literature and history teacher at a private school in Annapolis.
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