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Maryland nuclear engineer and spouse arrested on espionage-related charges
- dogman144 5y agoWhat is with the zany comments in this thread.
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- wly_cdgr 5y agoDid y'all read the guy's emails? Forget his legal problems...I'd kill myself from just the embarrassment if I was him
- Ansil849 5y agoWhat I don't understand: this person seems highly intelligent, I mean he's a nuclear engineer for crying out loud, but yet reading their email correspondence he comes off extremely stupid. How can we reconcile this?
- asimpletune 5y agoWow, the feds payed him 10, then 20, then 70k during the course of their operation. I’d really like to know the full story of how this guy got to this point.
- changoplatanero 5y agoAnd he even said in his email that he assumed the feds would never pay as much as 100k so it had to be legit. I suppose the fbi can now recover the money and if they can’t they can just seize this guy’s property to make the government whole.
- senectus1 5y agoI doubt that getting the money back is very high on the feds priorities. 100k for an op isn't really that much. especially when it comes to subjects like this. now, I'm not saying it was worth it... I dont have all the details.
- irrational 5y agoI’m surprised you are being downvoted. I’ve seen events at my work that cost more than $100k. It’s literally nothing to large corporations and governments.
- MattGaiser 5y agoThey will spend far more prosecuting him than 100K.
- senectus1 5y agoit's probably more about the last line of my comment. it was too reasonable :-P
- anonporridge 5y ago100k is probably significantly less than the salaries for all man hours involved in this operation.
- elwell 5y ago> if they can't That is a bit interesting for scenarios like this, the gov may not be able to reclaim even the unspent crypto; well it's not that different from burying cash somewhere and not divulging after being caught.
- anonporridge 5y agoIf this guy was dumb enough to think he could get away with selling submarine secrets, I doubt he was smart enough to secure his private keys in an unseizable way, especially if the arrest was a surprise.
- vkou 5y agoAfter you've been arrested, your crypto is no longer unseizable, unless you never want to leave prison again. If you're ordered to turn the money over by the courts, they can hold you as long as you remain in contempt of court. Rubber-hose decryption in general has a pretty solid track record.
- john_moscow 5y agoIn Russia we call it thermorectal crypotoanalysis. "Thermo" refers to a soldering iron.
- anonporridge 5y agoFeeling compelled to comply with a court order and voluntarily relinquish your property is still very different from being seizable without your consent. Especially with the nature of civil asset forfeiture, in which many people never recover their money or property even after proving their innocence, unseizable property has it's appeal.
- vkou 5y ago> Feeling compelled to comply with a court order and voluntarily relinquish your property is still very different from being seizable without your consent. The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there isn't one. In practice, there is.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago"he assumed the feds would never pay as much as 100k" You can't think small with these things, if he had real ambition and vision, he could be running Goldman Sacks!
- gonzo41 5y agoHe obviously doesn't know what the military is willing to pay for a hammer!
- paulpauper 5y agoI think there will be a plea deal
- anonu 5y agoThe money is peanuts. You think the govt cares about $100k in crypto? The salaries of the FBI agents on this and the legal machine that's about to come down hard on these guys costs millions to maintain.
- paulpauper 5y agoit is more than the $. the plea deal avoids the potentially lengthy and expensive trial.
- anonu 5y agoThere's no need for a plea deal here because the evidence is slam dunk.. the emails .. the dead drop... The government will take their plea and still send them to jail forever. My point is, if i was the justice dept I'd be happy to go to trial.
- sumedh 5y ago> if i was the justice dept I'd be happy to go to trial. or the justice dept can accept the plea deal so they can quickly move to other cases.
- lazide 5y agoThis isn’t the type of case they are in a hurry to file in the back of a filing cabinet somewhere. This is the type of case they want to turn into a public flaying.
- lazide 5y agoThey’re going to hang him as high and hard as they can to make an example of him. If they could force CSPAN and CNN into the court room to watch you bet they would.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoWhat if you take the money and don't give them any data? What is the crime? Great lifehack
- anonu 5y agoShould've added at least another 0 to make it worthwhile...
- ec109685 5y agoHis goal was $100k a drop * 50 drops, so he ws planning for $5M. It's in the full indictment: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/downl...
- changoplatanero 5y agoSo whatever the foreign country is they must have decided that it was better for them to hand it over to the fbi. I assume then that they were willing to help by arranging the signal at the embassy.
- eganist 5y agoAlternatively, the foreign nation's non-diplomatic mail was being routinely inspected and this was intercepted.
- detaro 5y agohow does intercepting mail lead to COUNTRY1's authorities handing a letter to the US FBI attaché in that country?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoIf I suspect my mail is being intercepted, were I to receive a damaging letter my best course of action would be to immediately inform the authorities. I would assume they knew about it and let it through to try and entrap me as well as the sender. No idea if this happened, but given it's common knowledge the US spies on foreign mail it wouldn't surprise me.
- ip26 5y agoSounds like the US doesn’t even need to spy on foreign mail, as long as it’s common knowledge that it does ;)
- lazide 5y agoAll it takes is some uncertainty and doubt to make a lot of possible options seem too dangerous. It isn’t very fun to think about, but there is a reason behind a lot of the crazy stuff that governments do.
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- tptacek 5y agoA good Pinboard thread on the highlights of the indictment, which is really something. https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1447308841524203521 https://twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1447308841524203521 My favorite detail: the first SD card the guy delivered, he hid in half a peanut butter sandwich.
- AutumnCurtain 5y agoThe contents of his messages make it clear he was very excited to play secret agent. Can't imagine how they must have felt at that third drop when the FBI busted them.
- rayiner 5y agoThe lady is a teacher at my kid’s school. Woke up this morning to a very unexpected email from the head of school.
- sanguy 5y agoGet your kids out of that school asap. 4 years ago our daughter was the target of a sexual predator in the schools leadership team. The individual still works at the school. The school has a long history of these issues. It is rotten to the core.
- rayiner 5y agoThat’s disconcerting. We’ve had a great experience so far, but I’d you wouldn’t mind getting in touch (my email is in my bio) I’d appreciate it.
- mzs 5y agohttps://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ac-cn-key-school-future-20190203-story.html https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/ac-cn-key-school-future-...
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- eganist 5y agoI'm more keen on knowing if the crypto was purchased by the feds or if it came from asset seizures. Assuming anyone knows the wallets of the accused, this should be easy enough to figure out.
- nsilvestri 5y agoTransactions were done in Monero, so no way to find the addresses from the public ledger.
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- eganist 5y agoGood point; I read the press release and only now realized I hadn't seen the complaint itself.
- chroem- 5y agoReading this press release, I'm a little confused. Was there a foreign government involved in this case, or was he interacting with the FBI the entire time?
- tptacek 5y agoThere was a foreign government involved. They ratted him out to the FBI (or their communications were somehow compromised).
- aahortwwy 5y agoThe affidavit implies they were cooperative, including granting the FBI access to a building of theirs in D.C. > During the weekend of May 29-30, 2021, the FBI conducted an operation in the Washington, D.C. area that involved placing a signal at a location associated with COUNTRY 1 in an attempted effort to gain bona fides with “ALICE.”
- potatoman22 5y agoIt seems like initially a foreign government reached out to him and the FBI intercepted his response.
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- fnord77 5y agoany guesses who COUNTRY1 is?
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- tedk-42 5y agoIt doesn't matter who COUNTRY1 is. Once they have the information they can sell it for more money to any country/group which are adversaries (who might want to replicate or seek vulnerabilities in the systems) or friendly to the USA and just want to understand the naval capabilities more. There are lots of interested parties in acquiring sensitive data like this and a 'country' or 'nation' might not even be involved.
- ec109685 5y agoThe country was nice enough to rat him out to the US.
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- lazide 5y agoThe issue is a bit more complicated in real life. It’s almost impossible to do anything without some kind of trail, as you can see in the indictment. If you’re an intermediary in some way, or even just know about it and then don’t tell the source county, and then the source country finds out? Holy moly the blowback will be incredible. If you were a nominal ally? Even more so! You’ve seen the level of hell leveled against Assange and Snowden, you could expect the same but against the whole country. And you don’t know for sure that the source country doesn’t already know this leak is happening too and it isn’t setup to figure out who their friends are either, because that also happens.
- khuey 5y agoFrance seems to be the most likely candidate, for reasons detailed elsehwere in the comments.
- cebert 5y agoEdited: deleted due to concerns raised by others, previously posted link to Facebook profile
- aaomidi 5y agoThis is considered doxxing.
- jonas21 5y agoWhy? The DOJ names him in the complaint and press release.
- aaomidi 5y agoThe DOJ doesn't link their Facebook page.
- ryan93 5y agoIt would only be doxxing if he posted the address of the federal prison he is in.
- aaomidi 5y agoJail. Not prison. Not yet at least.
- paulpauper 5y agoIt is a gray area. Could be but maybe not depending on the rules.
- paulpauper 5y agolol looking at a multi-decade sentence for $70k. They should have done the YouTube giveaway thing instead. way more $ and no risk https://scaminvestigations.substack.com/p/better-than-ransomware-youtube-crypto https://scaminvestigations.substack.com/p/better-than-ransom...
- 55555 5y agoRansomware makes much more than you think.
- jasonhansel 5y agoSo, which country is "COUNTRY1"? It seems like it would almost have to be Russia (or another potential adversary), but why would they then turn over his letter to the FBI?
- stevenwoo 5y agoSeveral news sources reported his contact was an FBI agent pretending to be a foreign agent.
- jasonhansel 5y agoFrom the text of the complaint: > On or about December 20, 2020, the FBI’s attaché (“LEGAT”) in COUNTRY1 obtained a package representatives from COUNTRY1 had received in April 2020 through a mail carrier from the U.S. by an unidentified subject in an attempt to establish a covert relationship. It sounds like he tried to contact a foreign country, that country turned him over to the FBI, and then an undercover FBI agent pretended to be an agent of that country.
- detaro 5y agoYes, after the FBI got handed the documents by the mystery country.
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- detaro 5y agoIf they didn't think there was a high chance of getting anything good from the guy, or expected a high chance of him getting caught nevertheless, why not score some political points by being nice instead?
- xxpor 5y agoEven if the risk of getting caught were low, for France (if it actually was France), the strategic risk of stealing the US nuclear subs' secrets is astronomical. Why in the world would they take that risk?
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoSub secrets. He (and his wife) will be old and grey, before they’ll be able to walk more than 100 yards, in a straight line. Sub secrets are the most sensitive secrets we have (probably on par with the names of highly-placed assets). There will be no leniency. The foreign country probably knew they’d be up shit’s creek, if they got caught.
- anonu 5y agoDon't know why this isn't treason. Feels like it should be...
- AutumnCurtain 5y agoHe actually congratulated the "foreign agent" on their "bravery in serving their country": https://www.twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1447318704601976832 https://www.twitter.com/Pinboard/status/1447318704601976832
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- fphhotchips 5y agoBecause it's not treason, it's (attempted) espionage. Don't worry, the US is plenty harsh on espionage.
- jdavis703 5y agoIt certainly seems like it meets the definition. However, it seems excessive to charge espionage as a capital crime. Per Wikipedia: > Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance.[1] This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor.
- rasengan0 5y agoExpensive sandwich. Was the 100K total payments in USD or fiat value? [1] Taxpayers hope for the former. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sweden-government-forced-pay-jailed-170012994.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sweden-government-forced-pay-...
- User23 5y agoWhen was the last time the FBI busted a major criminal that they weren’t entrapping?
- xxpor 5y agoThis isn't entrapment. In fact, the FBI relies on people thinking it is entrapment, so people are more likely to do really stupid shit like do a dead drop at a park with a LITERAL SURVEILLANCE TOWER.
- MattGaiser 5y ago> Jonathan Toebbe sent a package to a foreign government, listing a return address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, containing a sample of Restricted Data and instructions for establishing a covert relationship to purchase additional Restricted Data. He seems to have kicked it off all by himself.
- LinuxBender 5y agoEven if this was entrapment (not the legal definition) it would be the OSI doing it and they are well within their purview to test anyone holding a security clearance at any time. They do this often and people do get caught. You accept this risk and responsibility when you get a clearance or hold a position that has access to anything sensitive.
- jjulius 5y ago>On June 8, 2021, the undercover agent sent $10,000 in cryptocurrency to Jonathan Toebbe as “good faith” payment. ... After retrieving the SD card, the undercover agent sent Jonathan Toebbe a $20,000 cryptocurrency payment. In return, Jonathan Toebbe emailed the undercover agent a decryption key for the SD Card. A review of the SD card revealed that it contained Restricted Data related to submarine nuclear reactors. Forgive my ignorance here, but this actually made me curious. At this point, he's been given $30k almost entirely out of good faith. What legal trouble - if any - would be be in if he gave them the key, and when they decrypted it they found hours and hours of porn or some other junk? As though he wasn't interested in giving them documents, but rather bilking some foreign country out of cash.
- temp8964 5y agoOnly $30k for secret military information? The couple were really desperate.
- RogerL 5y agoAt an old job we used to get regular talks given by the FBI about espionage cases. A common theme was just how cheaply most sell themselves for. Motivations tend to be as much titillation (playing spy) and revenge (passed over for promotion, for example) as it is for pure money.
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- perl4ever 5y agoOr just political beliefs/idealism. Some people thought for instance that being the sole possessor of atomic weapons was too much power for any country, even the US. I believe I read something that gave the impression that certain secrets were given to the Soviets, not for money, out of narcissism, or love of Communism, but just the belief that a balance of power was better for the world.
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- nafizh 5y agoTo be honest, 90k$ seems too small to take such huge risks. Were they already in some kinds of debt? Maybe, that tipped the FBI to target them?
- itake 5y agogov employees don't make much
- idiotsecant 5y agoAnd as someone below mentioned he was selling these secrets to France, which has got to be somewhat like stealing a bicycle and then pawning it 6 blocks away. What an incredibly risky and stupid move. I am so interested in the circumstances around this. Why did an (apparently) intelligent person do something so incredibly stupid?
- vkou 5y agoFrance and the United States have historically, and will likely continue to engage in industrial espionage against eachother.
- yosito 5y ago> Why did an (apparently) intelligent person do something so incredibly stupid? I suspect more information about the motives in this case will come to light, but two explanations come to mind: 1) People who are incredibly intelligent in one domain, are often not particularly intelligent in another. Especially with a highly specialized discipline like engineering, if you spend a lot of time developing your abilities in one area, it often comes at the expense of other areas. 2) People often make entirely rational decisions according to their circumstances, that may appear irrational to someone who can't see the whole picture. Perhaps there was some kind of duress or other factor that caused them to take a risk that seems stupid without being able to see the whole picture.
- michaelt 5y agoFrance has recently lost that Australian diesel submarine sale, in favour of American nuclear subs, and has made their displeasure very clear. Perhaps he misread the situation and imagined France would be receptive given that fact.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago> In actuality, that person was an undercover FBI agent. Does the FBI catch any actual real criminals these days or just entrap people? Every single major bust they do is just them raking in a few people stupid enough to engage with an informant. How many of the Michigan kidnappers were FBI informants? How many people who organized and broke into the capital on Jan 6 were FBI informants? How many people who organized Charlottesville were FBI informants?
- dvogel 5y agoWhile the FBI's behavior in many cases is extremely suspect in this case there seems to have been legitimate contact between these suspects and real foreign agents in early 2020, prior to any FBI involvement.
- FridayoLeary 5y agoprevention is the best cure. If everyone is in jail, there won't be any terror attacks and FBI will have justified their budget.
- aahortwwy 5y agoFrom the affidavit: > On or about December 20, 2020, the FBI’s attaché (“LEGAT”) in COUNTRY1 obtained a package representatives from COUNTRY1 had received in April 2020 through a mail carrier from the U.S. by an unidentified subject in an attempt to establish a covert relationship.
- dogman144 5y agoHow many Navy nuke engineers sent docs to a foreign government with contents of enough class'd info to prove legitimacy, before that foreign government turned it over to an FBI attache in-country? In this case, 1! You should read the indictment in place of the motivated reasoning minus facts on display here.
- tptacek 5y agoNo part of the story told in this indictment fits the definition of "entrapment". The case started when the FBI interdicted secrets being sent to a foreign intelligence agency.
- hmm320 5y agoI had each of them as a teacher in Denver when they taught there. Mr. Toebbe would tell me to stop “spinning my wheels” and try harder. I guess trying harder means selling nuclear secrets!
- iab 5y agoIf you had just worked a bit harder, you too could be under federal indictment
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoYou know… It’s advice without context like this that isn’t helpful! Sometimes being under federal indictment is just as much luck and circumstance as it is hard work!
- thr0wawayf00 5y agoThis reminds me of a chemistry professor I had in undergrad in his 50's who repeatedly made vague remarks regarding his prior career in military intelligence (when students showed up late to class, he'd sometimes talk about the days when "Uncle Sam" would wake him up at 2AM to get on plane to an unknown destination.) It always struck me because I came from a military community and many of my teachers had served at one point or another, but nobody bragged about it like this guy did. A couple years after I left school, he was arrested for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in various microscopes and other lab equipment and selling it all online. It was so bizarre seeing his mugshot on the front page of the local paper.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoAt least he didn't end up producing meth to pay for his medical bills, lol
- tartoran 5y agoThis couple just wrecked their lives and you have a story to tell. But regardless of their curent reputation, he may have meant what he said and wanted to genuinely help you but in the wrong way.
- nightshift1 5y agoDoing that kind of stuff isn't very bright. There was a very high chance that their client was going to blackmail them after a few transactions to decrease the price or stop paying completely.
- abdel_nasser 5y agoi recently read "the bomb in my garden" by mahdi obeidi (sic) who was the head of the iraqi uranium enrichment effort under Saddam Hussein. they started out with nothing and had to do everything from scratch. they were able to spin their centrifuge up to 20k rpm or something like that before it flew apart. you need 50k to enrich uranium. spinning a tube at that speed requires sophisticated machinery and knowledge that can only be gained after decades of hard work. but Saddam insisted that enriched uranium be produced in only a few years in light of the situation with iran. and when he insisted something be done, people would do it or else be killed. and so this required the enrichment engineers to seek equipment and knowledge from more advanced states. its amazing how casual the process of getting these things was for them. at one point they gathered data from a book in the stacks of a college library, a book that was not meant to be lent out to anyone who wasnt willing to provide ID, by simply asking the librarian if she could hand over the book really quick just to be sure its the right book. a lot of the things that stand in the way of people trying to do these things arent super specific but are just things like having the ability to machine metal within a certain tolerance or produce bearings that are within a certain spec. but they they did get their hands on some very important design documents that allowed them to succeed in producing enriched uranium in a very short period of time. its a fantastic book.
- jacquesm 5y agoUrenco played a role in that saga: https://wiseinternational.org/book/export/html/1516 https://wiseinternational.org/book/export/html/1516
- abdel_nasser 5y agoi love a good dutch comment
- interfixus 5y agoLegibility might improve if other guys and sentences than Saddam Hussein were allowed the use of capitalization.
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- AYBABTME 5y agoI'm always shocked seeing how little money an individual (private person or even politicians!) will require to be corrupted or do some awful, future hampering act. 30k$ for nuclear secrets? I've read O(100k) for corrupt high officials. That's not enough money to cover your future and retire on, but the consequences are that... you don't have a future anymore. I'd think people would need at least a couple millions?
- Barrin92 5y agoboth in their mid-40s with two kids and middle-class jobs to boot. Truly nuts, they've screwed their entire family over for what, less than they make in a year?
- tartoran 5y agoWould he still be indicted if he took the crypto and sent some fake nuclear info knowing that he gets paid one time only before the other party realizes it’s not real? Just wondering... Is it a crime to pretend you’d sell top sectet info, take the money and give garbage in return?
- mariojv 5y agoThe full criminal complaint is quite the read: https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/download https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1440946/downl... I'm still reading, but it looks like the key point in gaining Toebbe's trust to do a physical dead drop was the FBI dropping some physical signal in a nation's embassy or other location associated with them: >During the weekend of May 29-30, 2021, the FBI conducted an operation in the Washington, D.C. area that involved placing a signal at a location associated with COUNTRY 1 in an attempted effort to gain bona fides with “ALICE.” This makes me wonder if, as some are speculating, COUNTRY 1 is some US ally. Maybe the US had some cooperation in the investigation. It also makes me wonder who they haven't caught, if anyone. Nuclear proliferation is a scary idea....
- Johnny555 5y agoThis makes me wonder if, as some are speculating, COUNTRY 1 is some US ally. Maybe the US had some cooperation in the investigation. It also makes me wonder who they haven't caught, if anyone. Nuclear proliferation is a scary idea.... I don't think it even has to be an ally to get cooperation, I'm sure even Russia or China would be happy to cooperate on apprehending an amateur spy. They have their own spies to worry about.
- ianhawes 5y agoMatt Blaze explains why he thinks COUNTRY 1 is France[0]. Specifically, Russia and China are not likely to turn over the agent. We know from the correspondence that the suspects mentioned a poor translation, so you can surmise that it is not an English speaking country. We know that COUNTRY 1 has an Embassy in the US and a legal attache, so that rules out Iran or North Korea. [0] https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1447367518012776454 https://twitter.com/mattblaze/status/1447367518012776454
- hrgiger 5y agoIt doesnt make sense, nothing make sense nowadays... The incredible effort being spent by all those countries for some bullshit that doesnt make sense... While we are scientifically exponentially growing all they care about hurting,accessing another one. Couldnt anyone figure out yet that all superpowers has the ability to destroy world/end human life... Hello! What was your cause? I am in early fourties and feel like in my twenties it was more about development, there was people we unquestionably get exited and follow, nowadays I feel like its only feel about destruction , all this 3~ letters forget its cause... Global warming, lack of resources, you still spent your best resourcess with some thousand year old traditional bs. Right now I was only listening one of my favorite band from childhood @Turkey (which I guess disbanded now) thought its lyrics would fit here (WARNING BRUTAL): Who cares? My secrets, regret, mislead You're the victim of your ownself; it's your mistake I'll fight, to get my life, take it back Work hard, save money, get married, buy your own grave Make a wish; it's for your bliss Enter the world of pink dreams, here are the keys Enforced, classified, qualified, a robot mind Die for your, pray for your, pay for your state, it's payback time Can't feel, my heartbeats, like steel, I'm cold Hate me, kick me, bomb me, feed me, are you that bold? Make a wish; it's for your bliss Enter the world of pink dreams, here are the keys Won't make a wish, we've got the real keys https://youtu.be/m8BA9lxkHz4?t=591 https://youtu.be/m8BA9lxkHz4?t=591
- Jerry2 5y agoI find it curious that they haven't named the "foreign government." I guess we can rule out China and Russia because that would have been revealed in the indictment. Any speculation what "foreign power" they contacted?
- TeeMassive 5y ago> For almost a year, Jonathan Toebbe, 42, aided by his wife, Diana, 45, 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. In actuality, that person was an undercover FBI agent. The Toebbes have been charged in a criminal complaint alleging violations of the Atomic Energy Act. I can't help but suspect that there wasn't even a crime ro the idea of a crime before these agents came into play. The FBI notorious for this kind of things and is full of ladder climbers agents who entrap otherwise innocent people so they can have their names in a serious and scary looking press release.
- dogman144 5y agoIf you read the indictment, you'll see Toebbes reached out to COUNTRY1 with clear intent and proof docs, and COUNTRY1 turned over the evidence to the FBI attache who was local. If you don't believe the indictment, different story though.
- TeeMassive 5y agoCOUNTRY1 could be Canada for all we know.
- willcipriano 5y agoAt 100k in 2021 dollars, it's not worth it to be looking over your shoulder for the rest of your life. It's dirty money so you can't exactly use it as a down payment on a house or anything, it has limited utility. I'm amazed at how little money it costs to bribe someone, I wouldn't be remotely tempted to do something like this for less than a million. If Homer Simpson is anything to go by nuclear engineers aren't all that hard up for cash.
- _arvin 5y agoNo amount of money would do it for me. Can’t live a life like that. Don’t even need that much money so why would I risk it all? Not to mention it’s wrong on every level. Snowden did it the right way should there ever be a reason.
- willcipriano 5y agoI wouldn't do it myself morally speaking, but for a million you could retire in a cheap country and live relatively well. I could see why someone would make that choice. $100k isn't enough to do that, especially after you launder it.
- aahortwwy 5y agoAccording to the affidavit, the conversation was all leading to a large payment of $5 million.
- sandworm101 5y agoSD cards in sandwiches at dead drops? Is this reality or a Grisham novel? If someone in 2021 is asking you to transfer secret information in an SD card, run. They are either a scammer or a cop. The only reason to do something like this is to get physical evidence, photographs documenting you handing over the information. Physical dead drops of encrypted information isn't a thing anymore. Real spies use dropbox, tor, rapidshare, or a thousand other ways to securely move digital files without physically meeting. Encrypt it into a truecrypt container. AES-blowfish plus whatever other layers you think you need. Toss in some random junk to pad the size. Then rar-encrypt it again, splitting it into a couple 200mb volumes. Label it as some sort of porn and upload it to a filesharing service via Tor. If this is real spy stuff information then the recipient won't care about jumping through a few hoops to download the material. If it is the police then they will balk at the effort because it will be complicated to explain these steps court. The police will insist on an SD card in a sandwich.
- tcper 5y agoLike the first comment said, how do they trust each other? How did the buyer make sure you are not sending him a porn movie? I think the engineer knows all about that, but meeting is inevitable.
- sandworm101 5y ago>> how do they trust each other? They don't. The Russian agent places no value on the money. If it doesn't result in any useful information then it is a minor business loss. The American agent has accepted money from the Russian. He is already on the hook for espionage charges. He only continues the relationship to keep the Russian happy, to keep the money coming but also to keep the Russian from informing the FBI. The business deal becomes a continuing blackmail operation. Nobody trusts anyone.
- Animats 5y agoThey don't. The Russian agent places no value on the money. Historically, the USSR was really cheap about paying spies in the US. Maybe the GRU is paying better.
- Sophistifunk 5y agoAnd who exactly are these megacorps going to rent these houses to, once they've inflated the property values and matching taxes 100x? Nobody can pay 100x their current rent. Not even close.
- baryphonic 5y agoWrong article?
- Sophistifunk 5y agoYup :)
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- DoreenMichele 5y agoThe article makes me think of the movie The Russia House. It still has an excessively Mary Sue ending but parts of the movie are probably a better portrait of how this sort of thing really works than your typical James Bond flick. This is not the sort of thing anyone should do to add a dash of excitement to their boring existence, though one comment here suggests "playing spy" for titillation is a shockingly common motivation for such cases.
- dredmorbius 5y ago... than your typical James Bond flick... Ironic given the male lead. Great film though.
- DoreenMichele 5y agoI enjoyed it but that enjoyment came with some discomfort. Parts of the film are pretty tense and not in a "James Bond flick"/building excitement kind of way.
- dredmorbius 5y agoIt's been decades since I saw it, and my tastes are undoubtedly different. That said, it struck me as well-written, cast, acted, and produced, as well as far more subtle than a TJBF.
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- MarkSweep 5y agoHere we have the FBI enticing someone to commit a crime. Obviously selling secrets is not OK, but how do we know there would have been another buyer if the FBI was not there? I wonder if it would be possible to setup some sort of gamified system to capture people who are susceptible to this sort of enticement or entrapment. But instead of sending people to jail, it is something more akin to a lottery or an escape room. I don't know the psychology of people selling secrets, but if you could capture them in a game instead of criminal indictment, I think that would be a better use of tax payer money.
- lazide 5y agoUh, you obviously didn’t read the indictment? The defendant offered to sell secrets to a separate, unnamed foreign nation for money. That nation then turned around and turned them into the FBI, who continued the pretense of being an agent of that foreign nation. Literally zero enticement from the FBI going on here I can tell.
- trissylegs 5y agoIt seems to be more of a "Secret Shopper" situation than got caught selling it to real foreign agents.
- LatteLazy 5y agoIt's incredible how much risk people will take for a measly 30k. This guy has ruined his life for less money than he'd need to get a new car.
- DarkByte8 5y ago>This information was slowly and carefully collected over several years in the normal course of my job to avoid attracting attention and smuggled past security checkpoints a few pages at a time. I no longer have access to classified data so unfortunately cannot help you obtain other files. All that excitement that he felt over the years every time he extracted a few pages or pictures of secret documents thinking one day he will have enough. All the preparation for the exchange and the text that he left in all the drops makes me believe that he did this for the adrenaline and money. Also if the speculations are true and the COUTNRY 1 is France I think in his mind he thought that he was not doing harm to USA by selling it to Russia or China and also gets to play spy and get away with some money. I wish I can see his face when he gets arrested.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoAlso. How does someone this stupid get a Top Secret security clearance in the first place. Clearly that process needs a lot of work