Monica Elfriede Witt is a former United States Air Force counterintelligence officer and defense contractor who defected to Iran in 2013 and was subsequently indicted for espionage. Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1979 and raised in Florida, she enlisted in the Air Force in 1997. She trained as an airborne cryptologic linguist with a specialization in Persian Farsi at the Defense Language Institute in California. Over her decade-long military career, she deployed to the Middle East, including Iraq, to conduct highly classified signals intelligence and counterintelligence missions. She achieved the rank of technical sergeant and was awarded multiple commendations, including an Air Medal. After leaving the military in 2008, she maintained her top-secret security clearance while working as a defense contractor until 2010.Her ideological shift and path to defection began around 2012 when she traveled to Tehran to attend the "Hollywoodism" conference, an event sponsored by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that promoted anti-American propaganda. During this trip, she publicly converted to Islam on Iranian state television and began expressing deep disillusionment with U.S. policies and military engagements. Despite being warned by the FBI in May 2012 that she was a target for Iranian recruitment, she continued her engagements with Iranian operatives. In the summer of 2013, after teaching English in Afghanistan and Tajikistan, she finalized her defection. With logistical and financial assistance from Iranian officials, she boarded a flight from Dubai to Tehran on August 28, 2013. Upon arrival, she was provided with housing and computer equipment by the Iranian government and began her collaboration with the IRGC.Following her defection, she supplied the Iranian regime with highly sensitive national defense information. She compromised a classified Department of Defense Special Access Program that tracked Iranian intelligence operations and revealed the true identity of a U.S. intelligence officer operating against Iran, placing human lives and ongoing operations at severe risk. Furthermore, she leveraged her knowledge of the U.S. intelligence community to construct detailed "target packages" on her former colleagues. Using this information, four Iranian hackers created fake Facebook personas and imposter accounts to target these U.S. government employees with spear-phishing campaigns and malware designed to capture their keystrokes and access their webcams.In February 2019, a federal grand jury indicted her on charges of espionage, conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government, and conspiracy to commit computer intrusions. The four Iranian hackers involved in the cyber campaigns were also indicted. The FBI has placed her on its Most Wanted list for counterintelligence and offered a $200,000 reward for information leading to her capture. She is currently believed to remain a fugitive living under the protection of the Iranian government.

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