The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is offering a reward of $200,000 for information leading to the arrest of Monica Witt, a former U.S. Air Force intelligence expert accused of espionage on behalf of Iran in 2019.
In a statement released on Thursday, the FBI said it continues to seek information about Witt’s whereabouts. She is believed to have defected to Iran as early as 2013. The FBI stated that Witt “may continue to support Iran’s malicious activities.”
Daniel Wierzbiński, an agent with the FBI’s Washington Field Office Intelligence and Cyber Division, said in the statement: “The FBI has never forgotten her, and we believe that at this historic moment in Iran’s current trajectory, someone out there knows her whereabouts. The FBI wants to hear your voice to help bring Monica Witt to justice.”
Witt served as an intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force Special Investigations Unit. From 2003 to 2008, her duties involved counterintelligence operations and included multiple trips to the Middle East.
In 2019, then-Deputy Attorney General John Demers alleged that Iran targeted and recruited Witt. After defecting, she disclosed the existence of a “highly classified intelligence collection program” and revealed the identity of a U.S. intelligence official, thereby endangering that individual’s life.
The prosecution documents state that from January 2012 to May 2015, Witt conspired with Iranian personnel both inside Iran and outside the United States, providing “documents and information related to U.S. defense, with the intent and reasonable expectation that such materials would cause harm to the United States while benefiting Iran.”
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1865242926690313/
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