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Jonathan Toebbe, 42, is described as a nuclear engineer employed by the Navy. The DOJ said he and Diana, 45, first sent information in April to an unspecified country, offering “a restricted sample of data and instructions to establish a secret relationship.”
“The affidavit also alleges that, subsequently, Toebbe began to correspond via encrypted email with someone he believed to be a foreign government official,” the DOJ said. “The individual was truly an undercover FBI agent.”
According to the criminal complaint, the FBI succeeded in convincing a skeptical Toebbe that he had managed to come into contact with a foreign agent, including through “conduct[ing] an operation in the Washington, DC area that involved placing a signal at a location “associated” with the unspecified country. The aim was to persuade Toebbe that he was exchanging messages with a member of the intelligence services of that country. After several months, Toebbe reportedly struck a deal to sell restricted data in exchange for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency. ”
On June 26, the couple reportedly made their first briefing in West Virginia, with Diana serving as a lookout.
“There, with Diana Toebbe acting as a lookout, Jonathan Toebbe placed an SD card concealed in a half peanut butter sandwich in a pre-arranged” dead “spot, the Justice Department said.
There was also an exchange in August; the two were arrested after another fall in West Virginia. According to the DOJ, the Toebbes received $ 100,000 in cryptocurrency – starting with a payment of $ 10,000 and ending with a $ 70,000 – in exchange for the information they provided and keys to access the. SD card information.
The Toebbes, who reside in Annapolis, Md., Will appear in court in Martinsburg, West Virginia on Tuesday.
The case stems from a violation of the Atomic Energy Act, a 1954 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and intended to protect the nation’s nuclear secrets.
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