The FBI says it has arrested American husband-and-wife spy team, Diane Toebbe, 45, and Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and charged them with selling classified information ‘concerning the design of nuclear powered warships.’ In a scene reminiscent of the TV show the Americans, the FBI recovered a blue memory card wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a peanut butter sandwich, court documents said. (PDF below) The FBI provided the contents of the memory card to a Navy subject matter expert who determined that the records included design elements and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarine reactors, the Justice Department said.
The FBI conducted similar dead-drop exchanges over the next several months, including one in August in Virginia in which Toebbe was paid roughly $70,000 and concealed in a chewing gum package a memory card that contained schematic designs for the Virginia-class submarine, according to court documents.
According to a criminal complaint filed in West Virginia and unsealed on Sunday, 45-year-old Jonathan Toebbe, who has a top-secret clearance, “has passed, and continues to pass, Restricted Data as defined by the Atomic Energy Act … to a foreign government … with the witting assistance of his spouse, Diana Toebbe,” the military news outlet reported.
Specifically, the U.S. Department of Justice has accused Jonathan Toebbe of selling information for nearly the past year to a contact he believed to represent a foreign nation but was instead an FBI agent.
Daily Mail has a good piece
Us v Jonathan Toebbe Complaint Ecf No 1 Unsealed 0 by OWNEditor on Scribd
