Spy charges for former Navy nuclear engineer

--CBSN. A former US Navy nuclear engineer has been arrested on charges of trying to sell confidential information to another country. The Justice Department says Jonathan Toebbe thought he was corresponding with a foreign government, but authorities say the contact person was actually an FBI agent. His wife is also charged for acting as a lookout. Their alleged deception also reportedly includes a peanut-butter sandwich. For more on all this, I want to bring in CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge. Catherine, welcome. How did this operation unfold? And obviously, you know, the FBI must have been suspicious about this individual for a while in order to sort of trap him with this, correct?

Well, correct, Tanya. So according to the criminal complaint that was unsealed over the weekend, back in April of last year, the defendant, Jonathan Toebbe, sent a package to a foreign government that's not identified in the complaint saying that he wanted to sell nuclear secrets for cryptocurrency. This foreign government eventually notified the FBI, and it was at that point around December of 2020 they began a months-long surveillance operation of Jonathan Toebbe. And this involved what's called dead drops. And in spycraft, a dead drop is a fancy way of saying that the two parties agree on a prearranged secret location. One party takes the information to that location-- so in this case, an encrypted data card-- and then the other party comes and picks it up. So they exchange the information, but they never actually see each other in the process, so it gives both parties a kind of additional layer of security in these espionage cases.

And, Catherine, where did the peanut-butter sandwich come into play? Is that where sort of a disk--

I knew you'd ask that.

--or some sort of a-- [LAUGHTER] You know?

How can you not? Of course. Of course. So here's where the peanut-butter sandwich comes in. It comes in with this concept I just described of a dead drop. So there was a prearranged secret location, and it's alleged in the court papers that Jonathan Toebbe took this data card that was encrypted, and he wrapped it in plastic, and then he inserted it inside this peanut-butter sandwich that was then put in, like, a Ziploc bag, and then it was left at the location for what he thought was a foreign-government operative to pick it up. What he didn't realize at the time is that it was an undercover FBI agent. And, Tanya, it was not just a peanut-butter sandwich that he used for these dead drops. He also took a Band-Aid, and he found a way to pull back the paper casing, put an encrypted card inside that, and then seal it back up and also put it in a plastic bag at another dead-drop location. And on its face it seems like this is very ham-fisted spycraft, but we just spoke with a former operative who helped bring down one of the most notorious spies in US history, Hanssen, and he told us that it actually was probably pretty clever because you want to have a holding sort of like container, something that someone's not going to touch probably. And I'm not-- I don't know how many people would pick up maybe half of a peanut butter sandwich, right, thinking, oh, there could be something interesting here. So that, actually-- it's more clever than it looks at first glance.

I will certainly never look at a peanut-butter sandwich the same way again.

I don't think so. [LAUGHTER]

But based on the criminal complaint, it seems that the engineer did suspect he was being watched or perhaps suspected there was a trap at one point.

Correct.

What did he say about that?

Well, according to the criminal complaint, Jonathan Toebbe seemed to be somewhat suspicious of these dead-drop locations that this foreign-government representative, who was really an FBI agent, was suggesting. There was something about them that didn't seem too stealthy, and it looks like he was probably right.

That's right. And, of course, now the couple is set to appear in federal court tomorrow. Catherine, what can we expect to see from that hearing?

Well, on a more serious note, I just want to emphasize that this couple is accused of selling some of the most closely held nuclear-submarine secrets. That would be extremely valuable information for our adversaries like Russia and China. So I just want to underscore that. When you put the peanut-butter sandwich and the Band-Aids to one side, you have an American on American soil who is alleged to have been willing to sell these secrets for money. What we expect in court tomorrow is something really probably very brief. They may enter an initial plea in this case and probably get defense attorneys to represent them. So we won't expect a lot--

And Catherine--

--but we will have a chance to see them in court.

Right. And to your point about the seriousness of this crime, is there any indication as to who that initial-- you know, that initial foreign country that Toebbe reached out to? Because they essentially alerted US authorities--

Correct.

--so we can probably assume it wasn't Russia or China.

Well, this is, I think, the big mystery here is what foreign government did he attempt or alleged to have tried to sell these secrets but then felt that there was some kind of favor to curry with the US by tipping them off to this individual and his wife? Reading in between the lines, there may have been something about him that made the foreign government think he's not going to be a very useful intelligence source for them, and so they, in effect, in the spy world, threw him under the bus and alerted US authorities.

Catherine Herridge, thank you so much for reporting on this fascinating case.

You're welcome.

We appreciate it.