US Navy engineer 'caught sending out nuclear sub secrets in peanut butter sandwich'

11 October 2021, 10:27

A US Navy engineer tried to pass on secrets about American nuclear-powered submarines by hiding the data in a peanut butter sandwich, authorities claim.

Jonathan Toebbe thought he was passing information to someone working for a foreign government – but his contact was actually an undercover FBI agent, the US Justice Department said.

A criminal complaint said he had been selling information for almost a year. The country the FBI agent claimed to work for was not named.

Mr Toebbe placed a blue SD memory card in plastic and put it between two slices of bread in a peanut butter sandwich which was left at a "dead drop", the complaint said.

It claimed the espionage scheme started in April 2020 when Mr Toebbe, a nuclear engineer with top secret clearance, sent Navy documents to a foreign government and said he was interested in selling operations manuals, performance reports and other sensitive information.

He is alleged to have sent a letter which said: "I apologise for this poor translation into your language.

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"Please forward this letter to your military intelligence agency. I believe this information will be of great value to your nation. This is not a hoax."

FBI agents in the country he wanted to send the information to received the package, which had a return address of Pittsburgh, in December.

The agency then launched an undercover operation with an agent posing as a representative of that government, and sent 10,000 dollars (£7,343) in cryptocurrency.

It is claimed FBI agents watched Mr Toebbes arrive at a dead drop in West Virginia as wife Diana appeared to work as a lookout.

Agents then found the sandwich, and paid Mr Toebbe 20,000 dollars for the information, it is alleged.

The complaint said the card contained details about the design and performance of Virginia-class submarined, including a typed message that said: "I hope your experts are very happy with the sample provided and I understand the importance of a small exchange to grow our trust."

Further dead drops with the FBI's undercover sting continued, including one in which Mr Toebbe was paid 70,000 dollars (£51,400) for an SD card hidden in a chewing gum package.

Mr Toebbe, 42, was arrested in West Virginia on Saturday, as was Diana.