Husband and wife nuclear warship 'spy' team get 20 years each
- Reference: 1668100448
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/11/10/husband_and_wife_spy_team/
- Source link:
US Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe and his wife Diana Toebbe were [1]sentenced to 232 months (19 years, four months) and 262 months (21 years, 10 months), respectively, on charges that they worked together to hand numerous physical and electronic documents, including schematics for the advanced Virginia-class nuclear submarine, to an agent of a foreign government.
It isn't immediately clear why Diana Toebbe, who only appears to have acted as a lookout and confidant, received a longer sentence.
[2]
Jonathan Toebbe's job in the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program gave him access to a lot of sensitive material deemed "restricted data" through the Atomic Energy Act. Such information included "design, manufacture or utilization of atomic weapons, or production of Special Nuclear Material (SNM), or use of SNM in the production of energy," the Department of Justice said.
[3]
[4]
But Toebbe never spoke to a spy – when the unnamed foreign government, believed to be [5]Brazil , received an initial teaser package of documents from the engineer, it handed them right over to a local FBI attaché.
Toebbe then spent the better part of two years attending to dead drops and being convinced by the Feds that they were, in fact, the foreign government Toebbe had reached out to – quite convincingly at that.
The spy who fooled me
Toebbe was contacted by the FBI, which told him they were interested in the documents he had to share.
Untrusting at first, Toebbe was convinced that the FBI were foreign agents when they managed to slip a visual signal into the window of a building controlled by the unnamed foreign government he believed he was speaking to. The FBI didn't say whether the foreign country was in on the visual signal ruse, but the plan worked and Toebbe started cooperating.
[6]
He even presented a menu of sorts for his foreign handlers to peruse, listing a series of documents he was in possession of from his time in the Navy (Toebbe worked as a nuclear engineer for the Navy and was assigned to the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, also known as Naval Reactors, according to court docs).
The FBI then paid Toebbe $10,000 in Monero cryptocurrency as a sign of good faith. Two additional dead drops were made, totalling an additional $90,000. It was at that point the FBI was [7]granted a warrant [PDF] that resulted in the arrest of both Jonathan and Diana Toebbe.
Both suspects pleaded guilty in August.
[8]
The seriousness of the case, said US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Cindy Chung, can't be overstated. Toebbe "put the security of our country at risk for financial gain," Chung said, betraying and endangering the lives of his Department of the Navy colleagues. ®
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[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/maryland-nuclear-engineer-and-wife-sentenced-espionage-related-offenses
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y22Ch2M5HuWnA6nUz2xQ7wAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y22Ch2M5HuWnA6nUz2xQ7wAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y22Ch2M5HuWnA6nUz2xQ7wAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/us/politics/submarine-spy-brazil.html
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y22Ch2M5HuWnA6nUz2xQ7wAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/download
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y22Ch2M5HuWnA6nUz2xQ7wAAAJQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Looking at it another way.
Not such-a-great-deal, living-conditions-wise: you'd be living with other convicts, and probably getting ass-raped by a variety of people who might, or might not, use a condom. Add possible contraction of AIDS and of whatever else.
Clearly someone's sleeping on the job...
... The reason the judge gave the wife a longer sentence was because the judge believes the wife to be the ringleader. Why did she think so? Because the wife was caught passing a letter to her husband in court, which said something to the effect of her asking him to take the blame so that she could go free (and no doubt carry on doing things).
Hell, the BBC shows the reasons here:
[1]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63578924 .
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63578924
That's some serious stupid
You have to be incredibly stupid to think stealing nuclear secrets is a game you can win.
Trumpet
Is this a guide for the sort of sentence that Trump will be getting for HIS (alleged) espionage?
The longer sentence for Mrs. Toebbe….
…. Was because she also lied to federal agents, a crime in the US.
Re: The longer sentence for Mrs. Toebbe….
And tried to induce her husband to lie as well, which is yet another offense.
From Brazil directly to the CCP
this is more serious than it appears on the surface (a subtle submariner joke, heh)
Brazil currently has been GREATLY influenced by the CCP, with mineral interests and other things. (The now former President of Brazil was anti-CCP for example, barely beaten for a split term by his predecessor who is apparently favorable towards the CCP). If the link between CCP and Brazil remains tight, you can be sure that any info obtained by Brazil spies would end up with the CCP.
And with tensions in S.E. Asia, from Taiwan independence to territory disputes with Japan, it is NOT good for the world to have things like this happen.
Re: From Brazil directly to the CCP
What ever the leanings of the Brazilian government they obviously thought the most profitable thing to do was to sell the case straight back the US. Whether they thought this was a sting or whether they felt some brownie points from the the guys up to their north would be helpful, who knows.
So the "Lady MacBeth" scenario?
Guess she's not going to be getting off as lightly as Lady M.
But, y'know kind of an odd choice. Brazil?
Not, I'd suggest obvious choice for buying nuclear submarine plans.
Iran. Yeah. Pakistan. Definitely up for a bit of nuclear espionage (how they got their centrifuge tech in the first place).
Damn!
And there I was, ready to hand over the details of a [1]turboencabulator to the Chinese for millions.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLDgQg6bq7o
Looking at it another way.
Room and board for 2 people for 20 years at $350 a month. $168000 This spy game pays. Not great, but not too bad. Although I hear winters at Leavenworth are a bitch.