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A US Navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been accused of attempting to pass information on the design of US nuclear submarines to someone he believed to be a representative of a foreign government – but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.
In a criminal complaint detailing espionage charges against Jonathan Toebbe, the US Department of Justice said he sold information for nearly a year to a contact he said represented a foreign power. This country was not named in court documents.
Toebbe, 42, was arrested in West Virginia on Saturday with his wife, 45, Diana Toebbe, after placing a removable memory card in a pre-established “dead drop” in the state, according to the DoJ.
It was not immediately clear if Toebbe had an attorney who could speak on their behalf.
Prosecutors say the scheme began in April 2020 when Toebbe sent a package to a foreign government containing a sample of U.S. secrets he could provide, along with instructions on how to continue the relationship.
He then began communicating with someone who was in fact an undercover agent and agreed to sell information for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to the complaint, which alleges violations of the atomic energy law. .
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