A former IT specialist at the Defense Intelligence Agency faces life in prison after pleading guilty to trying to give Top Secret information to a “friendly foreign government” that sources told The Washington Post was Germany.
Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 29, of Alexandria, who worked with the Insider Threat Division at the DIA, offered to provide classified information to the foreign government in March 2025, in an email in which he had this to say:
I am an officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) serving in a technical role in support of our internal Office of Security (SEC). The recent actions of the current administration are extremely disturbing to me … I do not agree or align with the values of this administration and intend to act to support the values that the United States at one time stood for. To this end, I am willing to share classified information that I have access to, which are completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation.
The FBI began its investigation into Laatsch after becoming aware of the contents of the email.
An undercover agent began communicating with Laatsch, and from this point, the story laid out in the court documents reads like a script from “The Americans.”
A few weeks into his turn at espionage, Laatsch – who completed a bachelor’s degree in cyber security at Florida Polytechnic University in 2018, and started working at the DIA a year later – began transcribing classified information to a notepad at his desk and squirreling the information out from his workspace.
He then deposited the classified information on a thumb drive at a public park in Northern Virginia for the foreign government to retrieve.
Except that the FBI retrieved the drive, which contained multiple typed documents, each containing information up to the Secret or Top Secret level.
The drive also contained a message from Laatsch, in which he indicated that he had chosen to include “a decent sample size” of classified information to “decently demonstrate the range of types of products” to which he had access.
After receiving confirmation that the drive had been received, Laatsch communicated that he was interested in “citizenship” to the foreign country.
Laatsch also stated that, though he was “not opposed to other compensation,” from a financial standpoint, he did not need “material compensation.”
A week later, in mid-May, the undercover FBI agent advised Laatsch that the agent was prepared to receive additional classified information.
Between May 15 and May 27, Laatsch again repeatedly transcribed multiple pages of notes while logged into his classified workstation and took the classified information away from his workstation hidden in his clothing.
On May 29, Laatsch arrived at a prearranged location in Northern Virginia, where he again transmitted multiple classified documents.
Laatsch was arrested upon the FBI’s receipt of the documents.
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Chris Graham
