A former US Air Force counterintelligence agent was charged with spying for Iran after she defected to the Islamic Republic and helped it target her former colleagues, according to an indictment made public on Wednesday.
According to prosecutors, Monica Elfriede Witt gave the Iranians the code name and mission of a secret Pentagon program which involved American intelligence operations, reports the New York Times.
According to the indictment, she was working with members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The elite paramilitary group is known to carry out terrorist operations around the globe and has been sanctioned by the American government.
Prosecutors described how Ms. Witt provided a copy of her biography and job history in August 2013 to a person with ties to Iran’s intelligence services. That same month, she moved to Iran and, while living there, officials provided her with housing and computer equipment. Prosecutors said that she searched Facebook accounts for Americans and created “target packages” for Iran against American counterintelligence officials. –New York Times
Witt worked for the Air Force between 1997 and 2008, before working as a contractor. She was deployed to locations throughout the Middle East as a counterintelligence officer, and had access to ongoing counterintelligence operations – including the real names of intelligence assets and the identities of American officials connected to their recruitment.
