The FBI has issued a new wanted poster in the Farsi language offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the capture and prosecution of former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist Monica Witt, who was charged with revealing classified information to the Iranian government.
The poster, which appeared on the FBI’s website earlier this week, appears to be an effort to reach Iranians who speak Farsi. It underscores the FBI’s renewed efforts to apprehend and prosecute Witt in a long-running national security case involving the alleged transfer of classified intelligence to a foreign adversary.
It comes after the FBI on May 14 announced the $200,000 reward for information leading to Witt’s arrest and prosecution. In both the English and Farsi versions of the FBI’s “wanted” poster for Witt, she is said to be known to speak Farsi and reside in Iran.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment to Newsweek about any tips that have come in since.
Witt, 47, was indicted by a federal grand jury in February 2019 on charges of espionage, including transmitting national defense information to the government of Iran. A federal warrant was then issued for her arrest.
The FBI has brought fresh attention to Witt’s case as the U.S. has been at war with Iran since late February, with officials believing that the current instability in the country could bring information to light about Witt’s whereabouts.
Witt “allegedly betrayed her oath to the Constitution more than a decade ago by defecting to Iran and providing the Iranian regime National Defense Information and likely continues to support their nefarious activities,” Daniel Wierzbicki, special agent in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence and Cyber Division, said in a statement earlier this month.
“The FBI has not forgotten and believes that during this critical moment in Iran’s history, there is someone who knows something about her whereabouts.”
The FBI has described Witt as a white female, 5 feet 6 inches tall, with brown hair and brown eyes and weighing about 120 pounds. Her aliases are listed as Fatemah Zahra and Narges Witt.
Who Is Monica Elfriede Witt?
Witt is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence specialist and special agent for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
She served in the Air Force between 1997 and 2008, where she was trained in the Farsi language and was deployed overseas on classified counterintelligence missions, including to the Middle East. She then worked as a Defense Department contractor until 2010.
Witt, a native of El Paso, Texas, defected to Iran in 2013 after being invited to two all-expense-paid conferences in the country that the Justice Department says promoted anti-Western propaganda and condemned American moral standards.
According to the FBI, her work provided her with access to secret and top-secret information related to foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, including the true names of U.S. intelligence personnel in undercover roles.
The indictment alleges that Witt placed at risk “sensitive and classified U.S. national defense information and programs,” the FBI’s news release said.
“Witt allegedly intentionally provided information endangering U.S personnel and their families stationed abroad. She also allegedly conducted research on behalf of the Iranian regime to allow them to target her former colleagues in the U.S. government,” it said.
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