FBI offers $200,000 for information on former Air Force intelligence specialist charged with spying for Iran
The FBI is offering $200,000 for information that could lead to the arrest of a former Air Force intelligence specialist who was charged in 2019 with spying for Iran.
In an announcement Thursday, the FBI said it is still trying to locate Monica Witt, who it believes defected to Iran in 2013. The agency said it believes she “likely continues to support (Iran’s) nefarious activities.”
“The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts,” Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, said in a statement.
“The FBI wants to hear from you so you can help us apprehend Witt and bring her to justice,” the agency added.
Witt was a former counterintelligence officer for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. From 2003 to 2008, her work involved counterintelligence assignments in the Middle East.
In 2019, then-Assistant Attorney General John Demers alleged that Witt was targeted and recruited by Iran, and after she defected, she allegedly revealed the existence of a “highly classified intelligence collection programme” and the identity of a US intelligence officer, thereby risking the life of the individual.
Prosecutors alleged in the indictment that from around January 2012 to around May 2015, in Iran and elsewhere outside the United States, Witt conspired with Iranians to provide “documents and information relating to the national defense of the United States, with the intent and reason to believe that the same would be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of Iran.”
After her defection, Iranian government officials allegedly provided Witt with housing, computer equipment and other services to facilitate her work for them, according to the indictment.
The indictment also charged four Iranians with conspiracy, attempted computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft.
Credit: CNN
