WASHINGTON. In 2020, a US naval engineer and his wife made the fateful decision to try to sell some of America’s best-kept military secrets – the nuclear reactor technology that powers the US submarine fleet.
The couple then faced another major choice: to which foreign government should they try to sell the stolen secrets?
Based on text messages released in court, the engineer apparently believed that molesting America’s adversaries like Russia or China would be morally too far a bridge. Instead, Jonathan and Diane Tobbe thought of a country that was rich enough to buy secrets, was not hostile to the United States, and, most importantly, was increasingly eager to acquire the very technology they were selling: Brazil.
The identity of the nation that Tobbs approached has thus far remained closed by federal prosecutors and other government officials. But according to a senior Brazilian official and others briefed on the investigation, Mr. Toebbe approached Brazil almost two years ago with an offer of thousands of pages of classified documents on nuclear reactors that he stole from a US Navy shipyard in Washington. for several years.
The plan failed almost as soon as it began. After Mr. Toebbe sent a letter exposing secrets to the Brazilian military intelligence agency in April 2020, Brazilian officials handed over the letter to the FBI legal attache in the country.
Then, beginning in December 2020, an undercover FBI agent posed as a Brazilian official to gain Mr. Többe’s trust and convince him to hand over documents to a location chosen by investigators. In the end, Mr. Toebbe agreed to provide the documents and offered technical assistance to the Brazilian nuclear submarine program using classified information he had learned from his years in the US Navy.
Mr. and Mrs. Többe, who lived in Annapolis, Maryland, were arrested in October and pleaded guilty to espionage last month. He faces up to 17 and a half years in prison; she faces three.
Brazil continued to struggle with its submarine nuclear reactor program and has approached Russia for a partnership to develop a nuclear reactor, said a Russian military official who, like all people interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity because of classified material. and fine diplomacy.
Last month, just a week before Russia invaded Ukraine, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro even mentioned the technology during a trip to Moscow.
Mr. Bolsonaro tried to maintain good relations with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, despite his aggression towards Ukraine. Analysts in Brazil believe Mr. Bolsonaro, a former army captain, hopes in part to keep the door open for partnerships in nuclear reactor technology.
The Brazilian President’s trip to Russia drew criticism from the Biden administration. Asked about Brazil’s efforts to acquire Russian nuclear reactor technology, a senior administration official said on Tuesday that seeking to acquire Russian military technology is “a bad bet for any country.”
In some ways, Brazil was an odd choice for Tobbs. While Brazil and the United States have limited military relations, Mr. Toebbe began during one of the closest relations between Brazil and the United States in decades, when Mr. Bolsonaro and former President Donald Trump solidified the alliance between the countries.
Jonathan Tobbe (right) and his wife Diana Tobbe. The two pleaded guilty to espionage in February. Credit… Office of the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Institution, via The Associated Press.
While the US government initially wanted to reveal the name of the country Tobbs was trying to sell secrets to, Brazilian officials insisted that their collaboration not be made public, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The White House, the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment. U.S. officials have repeatedly said the couple were not trying to sell secrets to either the United States’ main adversaries or its closest NATO allies like France.
In encrypted messages from 2019 recovered by the FBI, Mr. Tobbe and Ms. Tobbe discussed what appeared to be different plans to sell secrets. One plan, Mr. Többe wrote, was wrong even for consideration. Another plan, presumably to sell to a friendlier country, was also questionable by Mr. Többe, but Ms. Többe insisted on it.
“It also cannot be morally justified,” Mr. Többe wrote, according to the court transcript. “We convinced ourselves that everything is fine, but in reality it’s not like that either, is it?”
Ms Thebbe replied, “I don’t have any problems with that. I don’t feel any loyalty to abstractions.”
Többe’s public defender stated that government regulations prevented him from answering questions. Ms Többe’s lawyer declined to discuss the case until the August verdict. She has repeatedly stated in court that the government presented individual communications out of context.
There were only a few countries that were not openly hostile to the United States and could use the technology and development that Mr. Többe was supposed to sell. Only a country capable of building a nuclear reactor and willing to invest billions in a nuclear submarine fleet would be willing to send him hundreds of thousands of dollars in the cryptocurrency he was looking for.
Brazil began work on the development of nuclear submarines in 1978, initially due to rivalry with Argentina. In 2008, under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil reinvested in nuclear submarine efforts to better patrol and protect its exclusive economic zone in the Atlantic Ocean, a source of fossil fuels and other resources.
The country is set to launch its first nuclear submarine in 2029 as part of a $7.2 billion submarine program. Brazil is building four more conventional submarines with French help, but it is trying to develop a fifth nuclear-powered submarine on its own, a project it has had trouble with.
As a result, Mr. Többe’s experience in making nuclear reactors even quieter and harder to detect, as well as other design elements of Virginia-class submarines, would be of great value to Brazil.
While the Brazilian embassy declined to comment, a senior Brazilian official said the country was cooperating with US investigators because of the two countries’ partnership and the friendly relationship between the Brazilian intelligence service and the CIA.
If Brazil were caught trying to acquire American secrets, relations between the two countries, including intelligence sharing, could be in jeopardy.
Instead, Brazilian officials worked with the FBI after Mr. Toebbe was initially hesitant to store classified information in a predetermined secret location called a hiding place.
“I am concerned that using the hiding place prepared by your friend leaves me very vulnerable,” Mr. Tobbe wrote, according to court records. “In the meantime, I must consider the possibility that you are not the person I hope you are.
To make Mr. Thebbe believe he was talking to a Brazilian official, an undercover agent told him to find a signal posted in the window of a Brazilian government building in Washington during Remembrance Day last year. Such an operation could only be carried out with the assistance of Brazilian officials in Washington.
Seeing the sign, Mr. Toebbe agreed to drop a sample of the nuclear secrets he stole from the Navy hidden in a peanut butter sandwich in West Virginia, setting off a chain of events that culminated in the couple’s October arrest.
Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman reported from Washington, Andre Spigariol reported from Brazil, and Jack Nikas reported from Rio de Janeiro. Ernesto Londoño from Rio de Janeiro contributed reporting.