The American couple who tried to sell secrets of US nuclear submarines even asked for US$ 5 million for the material. By negotiating with an undercover FBI agent, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe were able to receive $100,000 in cryptocurrencies — only to be arrested, ending the case.
According to the FBI report obtained by the sheet, US federal police began their investigation in December 2020 after being contacted by the government of a foreign country. This week’s report by The New York Times revealed that the country was Brazil.
The starter package sent by Toebbe to intelligence officials came in a manila envelope with four US stamps and a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania postmark. Inside, US Navy documents, an SD memory card, and instructions.
In the material, the sender said he intended to sell confidential information about technical details, operating manuals and performance reports of nuclear-powered submarines. These submarines cost up to US$ 3 billion, and few countries in the world have the technology to produce them.
“I apologize for the poor translation into your language. Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe the information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a prank call,” read the letter, dated April 2020. The author identified himself as Alice.
The material was delivered to the FBI representative in Brazil only eight months later. On December 26, 2020, an American agent began the investigation. He adopted the nickname Bob and sent an email to the sender, asking if the proposal still stood.
Both sides used ProtonMail, a messaging service that hides data from users (such as where the message was sent from).
The answer came two months later, on February 10, 2021. Alice replied that she had not been checking that email address because of the pandemic, but said that the proposal still stood. Then the FBI agent, implying that she was a foreign government representative, asked for more details on a specific file.
“We have a trusted friend in your country who has a gift for you in return for your efforts,” he wrote.
On March 5, Alice (or Toebbe) responded that she would not be comfortable meeting in person to receive such a gift. She proposed saving the files in the cloud and allowing access to them upon a payment of $100,000 in Monero cryptocurrency.
Two weeks later, the agent suggested leaving a “gift” at a neutral location. New refusal and counter-offer: leave an SD card with data in a specific location and receive payment online.
The agent agreed to pay US$ 10,000 in advance, before taking the card, and another US$ 20,000 later, to receive the encryption key that would give access to the content. Alice then asked for evidence that she was actually talking to a foreign government agent in question: that a sign be placed in the main building of that country’s representation in Washington on Memorial Day at the end of May.
The agent agreed, and the FBI “conducted an operation to place the sign as requested”—the report does not detail which sign was used, it only reports the request for something that was easy to visualize. “I can pass by on foot, by bus, car or bicycle,” Toebbe reportedly said.
The Brazilian embassy in Washington has two buildings, which are side by side: one for offices, easily seen from the street, and another for the ambassador’s residence, further from the sidewalk.
On May 31, Alice said she saw the sign and agreed to go ahead with the plans. The FBI paid $10,000 on June 10, and the card was delivered on the 26th. An agent saw the moment when Jonathan himself left the material at the agreed location in Jefferson County (West Virginia). Diana, his wife, was also seen there, appearing to guard the place while her husband dropped off the item.
The two stayed about an hour and a half on the outskirts, trying to throw off whoever was following them.
The SD card was wrapped in plastic and placed in the middle of a peanut butter sandwich. Two days later, the FBI paid the couple an additional $20,000 and received the password to access the files — which in fact contained classified information about US nuclear submarines.
In July 2021, the two sides agreed to deliver yet another data, now at a location in southern Pennsylvania. The couple used the same car and was again seen by an FBI agent as he left the material. This time, the card was affixed inside a band-aid affixed to a plastic food bag.
Along with the documents, Toebbe sent a message. He said he had more than 10,000 pages of classified information, which he would sell for $5 million. He said that he would have obtained the data little by little in his career in the Navy, that he no longer had access to new secrets and that he could answer technical questions if necessary.
He also said that he preferred to sell the information little by little, so as not to arouse suspicion from American agents, but he made a joke. “US security forces are lazy. They also have limited budgets,” she wrote.
Jonathan, 43, joined the US Navy in 2012 after earning a master’s degree in nuclear physics — early in his career, he even taught elementary and high school. He had left active duty in 2017, having served his time, and would be on the reserve until July 2020. His wife, Diana, 42, was a primary school teacher. The two lived in Annapolis (Maryland), about an hour’s drive from Washington.
A third delivery has been arranged for August. By this time, Toebbe’s cell phone was already being tracked by agents. He walked alone to the Virginia drop-off location and placed the data card in a packet of chewing gum.
This time, the FBI paid $70,000 to obtain the password. Along with the data was a message, in which Toebbe said he was considering leaving the US and going to a third country. He was annoyed that the delivery location had only one entrance, which could help identify him.
The couple were detained on October 9, after yet another handover of data. The two pleaded guilty to the charges in February of this year and are due to stand trial by August. Jonathan is speculated to receive a minimum sentence of 12 years and 6 months in prison, but he is subject to life imprisonment.
