Brian Regan buried stolen intelligence and hid the map in a toothbrush holder

Brian Regan had prepared a strange insurance policy for a planned sale of American secrets: he buried the intelligence, then buried the directions to it. The FBI’s case history says he wrote the stash locations on a note and put it inside a toothbrush holder, concealed near a highway exit sign in Virginia. The material came from the National Reconnaissance Office, where the former Air Force intelligence officer had access to highly classified information through a classified computer network.

Agents arrested Regan at Dulles International Airport on August 23, 2001, as he was trying to board a flight to Switzerland. In his pockets were encrypted notes and contact details for foreign diplomatic offices. According to the FBI’s artifact account, a booklet of consular addresses helped him choose where to try selling the stolen information. It later became an exhibit at his trial: an ordinary reference work serving as a directory for an extraordinary intended transaction.

The archive in the ground was not confined to paper. It included photographs, videotapes, CDs and DVDs, with caches in Maryland and Virginia state parks. The FBI says the stolen collection included pictures of Iraqi missile sites and encoded tactical information. Its account puts the intended price at $13 million and identifies China, Iraq and Libya as the countries Regan hoped would buy. Those were intended sales; the case should not be read as proof that all three governments received his material.

A jury convicted Regan in February 2003. He agreed to a life sentence for attempted espionage and unlawfully gathering defense information in return for full cooperation in finding the caches. Sentencing followed on March 20. He then led investigators back to what he had buried. The FBI reports recovering about 20,000 pages, plus recordings and computer disks. The retrieval brought a physical end to an attempted intelligence sale whose most indispensable remaining document was its concealed map.