FBI Offers $200,000 Reward for Arrest of Former Air Force Intelligence Specialist

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 active-duty 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 federally indicted in Washington, D.C. in 2018 and charged with espionage. She is accused of defecting to Iran and turning over classified information to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Witt was born in El Paso, Texas, and enlisted in the Air Force in 1997. She was assigned to an RC-135 reconnaissance airplane crew and attended the U.S. Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, from 1998 to 1999, where she learned Persian Farsi.

From May 1999 to November 2003, she conducted classified signals intelligence missions at several overseas locations, including a 2002 deployment to Saudi Arabia. She later served as an Air Force Office of Special Investigations special agent and counterintelligence officer, with deployments to Iraq in 2005 and Qatar in 2006.

Witt had access to a Special Access Program that included details of ongoing counterintelligence operations, true names of sources, and identities of U.S. agents involved in source recruitment.

Education Witt left the Air Force in 2008 and worked as a government contractor with AFOSI until 2010. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland in 2008 and enrolled in a graduate program at George Washington University in Middle Eastern studies.

Classmates described her as withdrawn and alienated, and she reportedly discussed drone strikes and extrajudicial killings. In February 2012, she traveled to Iran to attend the International Conference on Hollywoodism in Tehran. During that trip, she is accused of providing her credentials to the IRGC and disclosing government secrets.

Her public conversion to Islam was filmed and broadcast on Iranian state television.

Activities in Iran The FBI contacted Witt in May 2012, warning her that she was a target for Iranian recruitment. By then, she had already begun working with a spotter identified by the New York Times as Marzieh Hashemi. Witt traveled between countries including Dubai and Afghanistan while seeking permanent residence in Iran.

counterintelligence agents. She is also accused of working with Iranian hackers to produce malware used against U.S. intelligence assets and of identifying U.S. military intelligence workers for potential targeting through Facebook.