FBI Offers $200,000 Reward for Former Air Force Agent Accused of Spying for Iran

The FBI announced on Thursday that it is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of Monica Witt, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Witt, 47, also known by the aliases Fatemah Zarah and Narges Witt, was indicted in Washington, D.C., in 2018 on espionage charges. She is accused of defecting to Iran and providing classified information to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Witt was born in El Paso, Texas, and enlisted in the Air Force in 1997. She served on an RC-135 reconnaissance crew and later studied Persian Farsi at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. From 1999 to 2003, she conducted classified signals intelligence missions overseas, including deployments to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Qatar.

As an Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent, Witt had access to a Special Access Program that included details of ongoing counterintelligence operations, the identities of sources and the names of U.S. agents involved in recruiting them.

She left the Air Force in 2008 and later earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and a graduate degree from George Washington University in Middle East studies. In February 2012, she traveled to Iran to attend an anti-Western conference in Tehran, where she is accused of providing her credentials to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and making public statements critical of the U.S. government.

The FBI contacted Witt in May 2012 to warn her that she was a target for Iranian recruitment. By then, she had already begun working with a spotter identified by the indictment as Marzieh Hashemi, a Louisiana-born journalist and naturalized Iranian citizen.

Witt traveled between countries, including Dubai and Afghanistan, while seeking permanent residence in Iran. In August 2013, she sent her military discharge papers and other personal information to Hashemi before boarding a flight to Iran.

After defecting, Witt is accused of providing the code name for a classified Pentagon program and helping create target packages that included the names of U.S. counterintelligence agents. She is also accused of working with Iranian hackers to develop malware used against U.S. intelligence personnel.

Witt faces charges of conspiracy to deliver national defense information, delivering national defense information, conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, computer intrusion, aggravated identity theft and aiding and abetting.

"Monica Witt allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities," said Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division.