With all due apologies to the Forbidden Sandwich—the feds might have found the world’s most harmful sammie.
ZDNet reported on Monday, citing a prison grievance released on Sunday by the Department of Justice, that former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe and his partner Diana Toebbe tried to promote Restricted-class information about nuclear warships to an unidentified overseas authorities for cryptocurrency. To accomplish that, prosecutors allege, the Toebbes arrange a number of lifeless drops with SD playing cards containing nuclear information, with the primary of them hidden inside a peanut butter sandwich.
Jonathan Toebbe, 42, a former Navy nuclear engineering officer and lieutenant who left lively obligation for the service in 2017, labored on the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and had entry to giant quantities of information on nuclear-powered warships. An FBI particular agent wrote in the complaint in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia that he tried to promote a laundry checklist of information on the vessels, together with personal technical specs:
Toebbe labored with and had entry to data regarding naval nuclear propulsion together with data associated to army delicate design parts, working parameters, and efficiency traits of the reactors for nuclear-powered warships.
While Toebbe was not on lively obligation, he remained a human assets officer within the reserves till December 2020 and had his safety clearances renewed in March of that yr. (His LinkedIn page continues to be lively.) The FBI agent wrote within the grievance that in December 2020, the company’s authorized attache in “COUNTRY1” acquired a bundle that the nation’s representatives mentioned they’d acquired in April 2020 from an unidentified celebration searching for to ascertain contact. That bundle contained “printouts, digital media files containing technical details, operations manuals, and performance reports,” in addition to a letter stating the sender’s intention to promote secrets and techniques and an SD card containing data on find out how to reply.
The letter, which was despatched on April 1 (also called April Fool’s Day) with a return deal with in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, allegedly acknowledged:
I apologize for this poor translation into your language. Please ahead this letter to your army intelligence company. I consider this data might be of nice worth to your nation. This is just not a hoax.
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The prank was on the sender, as “COUNTRY1” had apparently reported the espionage provide to the FBI. Agents subsequently made contact with accounts on encrypted e mail service Protonmail in late December 2020, as instructed within the authentic letter. According to the particular agent who wrote the grievance, the person responded by asking for $100,000 equal within the Monero cryptocurrency, after which they’d add the info to a “secure cloud storage account, encrypted with the key I have provided you.” The FBI countered by asking for the wannabe spy to depart an SD card containing the info at a “neutral drop location.”
The sender was hesitant, based on the grievance, after which the FBI assuaged their considerations by arranging to show a sign at a constructing affiliated with “COUNTRY1” in Washington, D.C., over Memorial Day weekend in 2021. The FBI subsequently paid them $10,000 in Monero to earn their belief. Agents organized for a lifeless drop in West Virginia on June 26, after which they noticed Jonathan Toebbe method the location and depart a 16 gigabyte SanDisk “SD card… wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a half of a peanut butter sandwich.” His spouse, Diana Toebbe, allegedly acted as a lookout. The grievance states the FBI then paid the Toebbes one other $20,000 in Monero for them to ahead the decryption key for the “sample.”
In a message left on an SD card throughout one other drop in July, this time hid in “a sealed Band-Aid wrapper with a Band-Aid inside a clear Zip Lock bag,” the Toebbes allegedly requested for a complete of $5 million in Monero. Specifically, the grievance says they requested for the cryptocurrency to be cut up into funds of $100,000 equal every for 50 separate packages collectively containing hundreds of pages of nuclear information. In one communication to the FBI, the grievance continued, Toebbe defined this association as obligatory to make sure the feds weren’t simply slipping him petty money out of a bait fund:
The quantity per transaction is, partially a safety measure. As you famous in your letter, US. safety forces are lazy. They even have restricted budgets. Bait of] 0,000 or 20,000 USD to catch an agent are inside their regular actions. 100,000 USD and extra? They might provide it, however they won’t ship such a big quantity. New experiences affirm it is a widespread tactic utilized by US. safety forces to reveal brokers. Please don’t be offended by this, however your generosity to date additionally matches precisely an adversaries [sic] possible play to entrap me.
We can change a number of packages at a time, ifyour superiors are snug with this association. For safety, I might strongly choose to not make 50 separate drops to finish our enterprise.
Funnily sufficient, the FBI ended up paying the Toebbes one other $70,000 in Monero for the decryption key to a 3rd lifeless drop left in a bundle of chewing gum in August, bringing the full to $100,000.
The contents of the info handed over to date included schematics for the $3 billion Virginia-class nuclear submarine, which ZDNet famous is predicted to stay in service till a minimum of the yr 2060. The expertise utilized in that mannequin was just lately at the center of a (very amusing) international spat between the U.S. and France. The U.S. and Britain signed a cope with Australia to assist it develop nuclear submarines, infuriating the federal government of France, which had its personal $66 billion cope with Australia ruined by the announcement. The French authorities threw a match and withdrew its ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia, although Australian officers remained adamant they’d communicated to the French their “deep and grave concerns” over the diesel-powered French submarines they’d initially been planning to purchase.
The feds arrested the Toebbes on Oct. ninth. The two stand accused of a number of fees of violating the Atomic Energy Act, together with conspiracy and speaking restricted information.
According to the Baltimore Sun, neighbors of the Toebbes described a swarm of police together with greater than 15 automobiles and a minimum of 25 federal brokers sweeping by means of the defendants’ dwelling. FBI brokers additionally carried out interviews with neighbors and “ransacked” a white Mini Cooper of every thing together with its seats and GPS pc, locals informed the paper.
The Sun reported the Toebbes are scheduled to seem in court docket in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on Oct. 12.
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https://gizmodo.com/former-u-s-navy-nuclear-engineer-allegedly-tried-to-se-1847839951