American engineer arrested for selling SSN data

[Ivanhoe]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/10/jonathan-toebbe-navy-engineer-tried-pass-nuclear-s/
 

Quote

 

A Navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been charged with trying to pass information about the design of American nuclear-powered submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, the Justice Department said Sunday.

In a criminal complaint detailing espionage-related charges against Jonathan Toebbe, the government said he sold information for nearly the past year to a contact he believed represented a foreign power. That country was not named in the court documents.

 

Wife also clearly implicated.

Use of cryptocurrency not helping. lol

The last name Toebbe seems to be German, but an extremely rare one.

The photo showing a BLM sign is amusing. No way to tell if they are actual lefties or if it's a "pleez don't burn down my house" sign.

[Stuart Galbraith]

He was charged with supplying details to an allied nation. Supposedly he made contact with them, then they told the FBI about it.

 

[RETAC21]

Stupidity galore, Jive's take:

 

[BansheeOne]

Quote

A Babysitter and a Band-Aid Wrapper: Inside the Submarine Spy Case

Jonathan and Diana Toebbe seemed like an ordinary suburban couple, but the F.B.I. said they were would-be spies — and sloppy ones.

By Julian E. Barnes, Brenda Wintrode and JoAnna Daemmrich

Oct. 11, 2021

WASHINGTON — On July 28, Diana Toebbe posted a Facebook message looking for a babysitter to take care of her children early on the coming Saturday morning for five to six hours.

Later the post, visible only to friends, was updated with the word “*FOUND*.” And on that Saturday, Ms. Toebbe accompanied her husband, Jonathan, to south-central Pennsylvania.

Unbeknown to Ms. Toebbe, she and her husband were being watched by the F.B.I. as they left their home in Annapolis, Md. And the bureau’s agents continued to watch in Pennsylvania as Jonathan Toebbe removed from his shorts pocket a 32-gigabyte memory card hidden in a sealed Band-Aid wrapper, which he then, according to court papers, placed in a container set up by an undercover F.B.I. operative.

The Toebbes, accused by the U.S. government of trying to sell some of America’s most closely guarded submarine propulsion secrets to a foreign government, are scheduled to appear in federal court in West Virginia on Tuesday. They will face charges related to violating the Atomic Energy Act’s prohibition on sharing nuclear know-how.

For now, the big questions surrounding the couple — what country they are accused of trying to sell the nuclear secrets to, and what motivated them to take the risk — remain unanswered.

[...] 

Having made contact with the as-yet undisclosed other country about providing submarine secrets, the Toebbes were reluctant to expose themselves in an in-person meeting, according to the narrative laid out in court documents by the F.B.I. But their apparent desire for cryptocurrency payments led them to agree to the undercover operative’s demand they deposit information in a dead drop location — a decision that ultimately exposed their identity to the F.B.I.

Evidence in the court documents suggests the foreign country the Toebbes allegedly tried to sell the information to was an ally, or at least something of a partner, since it cooperated with the F.B.I. as the sting operation unfolded. While some experts speculated France could have been the target, French officials said they were not involved in the incident.

[...]

In February, F.B.I. agents, posing as a representative of the foreign country, proposed an in-person meeting. The response, which was signed “Alice,” a common placeholder name in military cryptography, wrote that “face to face meetings are very risky for me, as I am sure you understand,” according to the affidavit. The writer then proposed passing information electronically in exchange for $100,000 in the cryptocurrency.

“Please remember I am risking my life for your benefit and I have taken the first step. Please help me trust you fully,” the note to the undercover F.B.I. agents read.

The F.B.I. agents then pressed for a neutral drop location. The response came a few days later: “I am concerned that using a dead drop location your friend prepares makes me very vulnerable,” the note from “Alice” said, according to the affidavit. “If other interested parties are observing the location, I will be unable to detect them. I am not a professional, and do not have a team supporting me.”

The note went on to propose that the writer would choose a drop location for the encrypted files. The F.B.I. agents responded that they would give first $10,000 then $20,000 in cryptocurrency at a drop location of their choosing.

“I am sorry to be so stubborn and untrusting, but I cannot agree to go to a location of your choosing,” the response from “Alice” said. “I must consider the possibility that I am communicating with an adversary who has intercepted my first message and is attempting to expose me.”

The writer next proposed that the country provide reassurance by sending a signal from its complex in Washington over Memorial Day weekend.

Writing from an encrypted Proton mail account, “Alice” said the signal had been received, and agreed to drop the material at the location chosen by the undercover operative — a mistake in tradecraft, some experts said.

“It was somewhat surprising that someone who has studied submarine warfare follows the F.B.I.’s direction to surface for these supposedly clandestine drop offs,” said Michael Atkinson, a former inspector general for the intelligence community.

The willingness on the part of the country to convey the unspecified signal suggests its cooperation with the United States throughout the investigation. Mr. Atkinson said it was very unusual for a foreign country to allow its embassy or other facility to be used to send a signal to a suspect being pursued by the F.B.I.

Mr. Atkinson, now a partner at the law firm Crowell & Moring, said a similar false flag operation by the F.B.I. involving a government scientist trying to sell secrets to an ally resulted in a prison sentence of 13 years after a plea bargain.

[...]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/us/politics/inside-submarine-spy-case.html

[KV7]

France really does seem like the most obvious candidate. India also fits though I suspect it would happily take the information, though cooperating with the FBI is also plausible.  The UK is out because of the 'poor translation into your language'. Israel would be plausible except for the fact that they have no nuclear submarine program.

The embassy in Washington D.C. seemingly needs to have a roof and be visible from the street, but that rules none of the candidates out.

[BansheeOne]

I thought France, too; not India, where English is an official language (or you would have to pick "your" language from 22 others). If we are to believe the French denial, I suspect Brazil, which is trying to build its first SSN. Israel is an outside chance if the guy thought they might want to drop a reactor into their current or next German subs; but that could theoretically make Germany the adressee, too, though it would require some spectacular misjudgement on his part.

[Stuart Galbraith]

It's not the UK, we pretty much have everything from the US on the subject through open access.

I'd guess India or France. Probably France, because I strongly suspect if India was approached in this way, they wouldn't have told the FBI. Ditto Israel. 

[Yama]

Oh, thought Treason Season was a bit late this year.

[KV7]

Another reason for France is that the emails suggest leaving a sign at the 'main building' of the embassy, and the French embassy indeed does have a 'main building' alongside other buildings.

[DKTanker]

On 10/11/2021 at 8:29 AM, Ivanhoe said:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/oct/10/jonathan-toebbe-navy-engineer-tried-pass-nuclear-s/
 

Wife also clearly implicated.

Use of cryptocurrency not helping. lol

The last name Toebbe seems to be German, but an extremely rare one.

The photo showing a BLM sign is amusing. No way to tell if they are actual lefties or if it's a "pleez don't burn down my house" sign.

Dianne Toebbe may be the initiative for the sign.  She's three years older than him, fairly unusual.  It would not surprise me if it turns out she is high maintenance and the impetus for the treason.
 

https://heavy.com/news/diana-toebbe-jonathan-toebbe/

Quote

Diana Toebbe posted about politics on Facebook and Twitter, including posts and retweets supporting Democrats and opposing former President Donald Trump. She shared an image on Facebook of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg a day after her death in September 2020 with the quote, “Fight for the things you care about.”

She also shared her support for the Black Lives Mater movement on Facebook and changed her Facebook profile in October 2016 to outline her photo with the words, “Women can stop Trump.” She retweeted a post from France 4 Hillary in 2017 speaking out against Trump’s Muslim ban after the Quebec mosque attack.

 

[DKTanker]

4 minutes ago, KV7 said:

Another reason for France is that the emails suggest leaving a sign at the 'main building' of the embassy, and the French embassy indeed does have a 'main building' alongside other buildings.

On the one hand, although contact apparently started 18 months ago, he may have been in the loop about future sales to Australia in a bid to undercut France and thought France would be interested in US technology.  On the other hand why would he feel the need to translate his message into French?  I know I wouldn't worry about it.

[KV7]

The motive seems hard to uncover beyond money, but the payoff was so small, especially considering they would have a quite good combined income. On the other hand If they were motivated by politics I don't see why they would try to give secrets to the Europeans, assuming that is what happened. America bad, France good isn't really a coherent position, though who knows maybe they have some sort of weird centrist cosmopolitanism.

Israel perhaps makes more sense here because there are liberal Zionists who think 'defending Israel' is really important.

One or both of them could be narcissists who happen to be 'liberal' just because that is a decent way to get attention, and then hatched the plan because 'spy drama' seemed titillating and self aggrandizing.

Edited October 12, 2021 by KV7

[Stuart Galbraith]

25 minutes ago, DKTanker said:

Dianne Toebbe may be the initiative for the sign.  She's three years older than him, fairly unusual.  It would not surprise me if it turns out she is high maintenance and the impetus for the treason.
 

https://heavy.com/news/diana-toebbe-jonathan-toebbe/

 

Same as Aldrich Ames. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Stuart Galbraith

[RETAC21]

The France lead may be a false flag operation, there was a US spy (whose name scapes me at the moment) that thought he was passing information to the South Africans and was ardently anti-communist, and it turned out that his contact was KGB....

 

[KV7]

Though it appears that the couple made the first move, to their intended target.

[Stuart Galbraith]

40 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

The France lead may be a false flag operation, there was a US spy (whose name scapes me at the moment) that thought he was passing information to the South Africans and was ardently anti-communist, and it turned out that his contact was KGB....

 

Jan Marais in The Forth Protocol.