The Justice Department said on Sunday that a US couple was detained in the state of West Virginia for allegedly selling nuclear warship information to a foreign entity.
Jonathan Toebbe, 42, a nuclear engineer for the US Navy, and his wife Diana, 45, were detained on Saturday by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and charged in a criminal complaint with breaching the Atomic Energy Act, according to the Justice Department.
The couple “sold information known as restricted data concerning the design of nuclear-powered warships to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power for nearly a year,” according to the statement, which also revealed that the recipient of the information was an undercover FBI agent.
Last month, US nuclear-powered submarines were at the center of a huge diplomatic spat between Paris and Washington, when Australia canceled a significant contract with France to acquire submarines.
According to the complaint affidavit, Toebbe, who worked in Annapolis, Maryland, and had access to restricted data about nuclear-powered warships as part of his job, cooperated with his wife to swap data on submarine nuclear reactors for roughly $100,000 in bitcoin.
