Navy Engineer, Wife Arrested on Espionage-Related Charges

A couple has been arrested and charged with attempting to sell U.S. nuclear secrets to another country in exchange for cryptocurrency. Following a year-long operation by undercover FBI agents, US Navy Nuclear Engineer Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana were arrested on Saturday. They were apprehended in West Virginia by the FBI and Naval Criminal Investigative Service after allegedly selling information concerning the design of nuclear-powered U.S. warships to ‘a person they believed was representing a foreign power but was actually an undercover FBI agent”.

The Justice Department said Toebbe had access to information on naval nuclear propulsions and sensitive military design elements including ‘operating parameters and performance characteristics of the reactors for nuclear powered warships.’ Toebbe allegedly sent his first package to a foreign government in April of 2020, after which the FBI began their investigation. An undercover agent worked on gaining Toebbe’s trust before he agreed to sell the information for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency. The couple has been charged with violations of the atomic energy act which prohibits anyone with access to classified information from sharing that info.