Who is Monica Witt? This is the former Air Force intelligence specialist accused of spying for Iran

On Thursday, the FBI announced it would offer a $200,000 reward to anyone able to provide information “leading to the apprehension and prosecution” of former Air Force intelligence specialist Monica Witt, who was indicted in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including sharing national defense information with the Iranian government.

According to an FBI press release, “Witt’s defection to Iran has benefitted the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has elements responsible for intelligence collection, unconventional warfare, and providing direct support to multiple terrorist organizations targeting U.S. citizens and interests.”

Who is Monica Witt and why did she defect to Iran?

Witt is a former active-duty intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1979, Witt served in the military for 11 years between 1997 and 2008. She then worked as a U.S. government contractor until 2010. Those roles gave her access to secret and top secret information related to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, which prosecutors say she later provided to Iran after defecting.

According to her 2019 indictment, Witt placed “sensitive and classified U.S. national defense information and programs” at risk, “allegedly intentionally provided information endangering U.S. personnel and their families stationed abroad,” and “allegedly conducted research on behalf of the Iranian regime to allow them to target her former colleagues in the U.S. government.”

Where is Monica Witt now?

Despite being indicted more than seven years ago, Witt’s exact whereabouts remain unknown, although authorities believe she is living in Iran.

In a 2013 interview with the International Quran News Agency, Witt, who studied Persian at the Defense Language Institute in California, said her deployment to Iraq several years earlier had sparked her interest in Islam and the Quran.

By that point, she had already converted to Islam during a televised ceremony on her first trip to Tehran in 2012, having become disillusioned with the U.S. government and military.

“I served in the air force for 10 years and participated in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars,” Witt wrote on the Iraq Veterans Against the War website, now called About Face: Veterans Against the War.

“After viewing so much corruption and the damage we were doing both to Iraq/Afghanistan and to the perception of the U.S., I decided I needed to do as much as I could to help rectify the situation.”

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