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Former US counterintelligence agent allegedly spied on colleagues to help out Iran, indictment reveals

By Jake Gibson | Fox News


Monica Elfriede Witt in 2012. The FBI says she was 'last known to be traveling and working in Southwest Asia'. (FBI)


An ex-counterintelligence agent who defected to Iran in 2013 helped the Islamic Republic in "targeting her former fellow agents" and exposed a Defense Department program considered one of the crown jewels of U.S. intelligence, according to an explosive indictment unsealed Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

Monica Elfriede Witt, the former agent named in the grand jury indictment, is from Texas and entered duty with the U.S. Air Force in 1997. She separated from the military in 2008.

"It is a sad day for America when one of its citizens betrays our country," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the head of the Justice Department's national security division.

FBI officials say Witt's primary motive was ideological, and the indictment alleges that when she defected to Iran she said she was "going home."

Four Iranians acting on the behalf of the government-linked Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were also charged in the indictment as co-conspirators with Witt. It's alleged they all worked on a cyber-campaign targeting her former colleagues.

Witt, as of Wednesday, was at-large.

A Missing Persons entry on the FBI’s website said Witt was “was last believed to be in either Afghanistan or Tajikistan in July 2013, where she was working as an English teacher.

“Witt may have also traveled to the United Arab Emirates or Iran, where she had previously traveled on at least two other occasions,” the entry adds, noting her friends reported her missing after not hearing from her in months.

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