US spies tried to sell nuclear submarine secrets to Brazil

In 2020, a US naval engineer and his wife made the fateful decision to try to sell some of America’s most protected military secrets: the technology behind the nuclear reactors that power the nation’s submarine fleet.

So the couple faced another important choice: which foreign government should they offer the stolen secrets to?

The engineer appeared to believe that providing them to US adversaries like Russia or China was morally wrong, according to text messages released at the trial.

Instead, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe envisioned a country that was rich enough to buy the secrets, not hostile to the United States and, most importantly, increasingly eager to acquire the technology they wanted to sell: Brazil.

The identity of the country addressed by the Toebbe has so far remained protected by US federal justice and other authorities. But according to a Brazilian government official and others briefed on the investigation, Jonathan Toebbe approached Brazil nearly two years ago, offering thousands of pages of confidential documents about nuclear reactors he had stolen from the US Navy’s Washington hub, the Navy Yard over several years.

The plan went awry almost from the start. After Toebbe sent a letter offering the secrets to Brazil’s military intelligence agency, in April 2020, Brazilian authorities handed the letter to the FBI’s legal attaché in the country.

Then, starting in December 2020, an undercover FBI agent posed as a Brazilian authority to gain Jonathan Toebbe’s trust and convince him to deposit the documents in a location chosen by the investigators. Toebbe eventually agreed to supply the material and offered technical assistance to Brazil’s nuclear submarine program, using confidential information he had obtained during years of working for the US Navy.

Jonathan and Diana Toebbe, who lived in Annapolis (Maryland), were arrested in October 2021 and pleaded guilty to spying charges last month. He faces up to 17 and a half years in prison and she up to three.

Brazil continues to struggle with its submarine nuclear reactor program and has approached Russia to seek a partnership on the project, said a Russian military official who, like everyone else interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified material. and the delicate diplomatic situation.

Last month, just a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil even mentioned the technology during a trip to Moscow.

Bolsonaro tries to maintain a positive relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, even amid his attacks on Ukraine. Analysts in Brazil believe that Bolsonaro, a former army captain, hopes to keep the door open for a partnership in nuclear reactor technology.

The Brazilian president’s trip to Russia provoked criticism from the Joe Biden administration. Asked about Brazil’s efforts to acquire Russian nuclear reactor technology, a government official said on Tuesday that trying to obtain Russian military technology “is a bad bet for any country.”

In some ways, Brazil was an odd choice for the Toebbe. Although Brazil and the US have a limited military relationship, Jonathan Toebbe’s offer came at a time of good relations between the two countries in recent decades, as Bolsonaro and then-President Donald Trump strengthened their alliance.

While the US government initially wanted to release the name of the country to which Toebbe tried to sell the secrets, Brazilian officials insisted that their cooperation not be publicly revealed, according to a person briefed on the investigation.

The White House, the Department of Justice and the FBI declined to comment. US officials have repeatedly said the couple did not try to sell the secrets to America’s main adversaries, nor to its closest NATO allies such as France.

Jonathan Toebbe’s public defender said government rules prevent him from answering questions. A lawyer for Diana Toebbe declined to speak about the case before her sentence was announced in August. She repeatedly said in court that the government presented selected messages out of context.

There were few countries that were not openly hostile to the United States and that could use the technology and projects that Jonathan Toebbe had to sell. Only a country capable of building a nuclear reactor and ready to invest billions in a fleet of nuclear submarines would be willing to hand over the hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency Toebbe wanted.

Brazil began work on developing nuclear submarines in 1978, originally motivated by its rivalry with Argentina. In 2008, under the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil reinvested in the effort to create a nuclear submarine to better patrol and protect its exclusive economic zone in the Atlantic Ocean, a source of fossil fuels and other resources.

The country aims to launch its first nuclear-powered submarine in 2029 as part of a $7.2 billion submarine program. Brazil is building four more traditional submarines with the help of France, but has been trying to develop a fifth nuclear-powered submarine on its own, a project in which it faces difficulties.

Therefore, Jonathan Toebbe’s experience in making nuclear reactors quieter and more difficult to detect, as well as other elements of Virginia-class submarine design, would be of enormous value to Brazil.

The Brazilian Embassy in the US declined to comment, but a Brazilian official said the country cooperated with US investigators because of the bilateral partnership and friendly relations between the Brazilian intelligence service and the CIA.

If Brazil had been caught trying to buy US secrets, relations between the two countries, including intelligence sharing, would have been threatened.

Instead, Brazilian authorities worked with the FBI after Jonathan Toebbe initially hesitated to deposit classified information in a pre-arranged location without personal contact.

“I’m concerned that using a location chosen by your friend makes me too vulnerable,” wrote Jonathan Toebbe, according to court records. “For now, I must consider the possibility that you are not the person I expect you to be.”

To trick Toebbe into believing he was talking to a Brazilian official, the undercover agent told him to look for a sign placed in a window at a Brazilian government building in Washington over Memorial Day weekend. [feriado nacional americano em homenagem a militares mortos] last year. Such an operation could only be carried out with the cooperation of Brazilian authorities in Washington.

After seeing the sign, Jonathan Toebbe agreed to leave a sample of the nuclear secrets he stole from the US Navy hidden in a peanut butter sandwich in West Virginia, setting off a chain of events that culminated in the couple’s arrest in October.