A 28-year-old Alexandria resident who works for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is in custody for allegedly attempting to transmit national defense information to an officer or agent of a foreign government.
Nathan Vilas Laatsch, an IT specialist in the DIA’s Insider Threat Division, was arrested Thursday in northern Virginia. He’s set to appear in court in the Eastern District of Virginia on Friday.
Laatsch, who has a Top Secret clearance, reportedly offered to share classified information with a friendly foreign government in March 2025, citing issues with the current administration’s values.
According to a press release from the Department of Justice:
In March 2025, the FBI commenced an operation after receiving a tip that an individual — now known to be Laatsch — offered to provide classified information to a friendly foreign government. In that email, the sender wrote that he did not “agree or align with the values of this administration” and was therefore “willing to share classified information” that he had access to, including “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation.”
The FBI stepped in after getting a tip about Laatsch’s offer. For several months, he talked with an undercover FBI agent posing as a foreign official.
After multiple communications with an FBI agent — who Laatsch allegedly believed to be an official of the foreign government — Laatsch began transcribing classified information to a notepad at his desk and, over the course of approximately three days, repeatedly exfiltrated the information from his workspace. Laatsch subsequently confirmed to the FBI agent that he was prepared to transmit the information.
Court documents state that Laatsch copied classified information at his desk and smuggled it out of his workplace over the course of three days. On May 1, he left a thumb drive with Secret and Top Secret documents in a northern Virginia park.
Thereafter, the FBI implemented an operation at a public park in northern Virginia, where Laatsch believed he would deposit the classified information for the foreign government to retrieve. On or about May 1, 2025, FBI surveillance observed Laatsch proceed to the specified location and deposit an item. Following Laatsch’s departure, the FBI retrieved the item, which was a thumb drive later found to contain a message from Laatsch and multiple typed documents, each containing information that was portion-marked up to the Secret or Top Secret levels. The message from Laatsch 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.
Later messages show Laatsch asking for citizenship from the foreign country in exchange for more classified information.
After receiving confirmation that the thumb drive had been received, on May 7, Laatsch allegedly sent a message to the FBI agent, which indicated Laatsch was seeking something from the foreign government in return for continuing to provide classified information. The next day, Laatsch specified that he was interested in “citizenship for your country” because he did not “expect[] things here to improve in the long term.” Although he said he was “not opposed to other compensation,” he was not in a position where he needed to seek “material compensation.”
On May 29, Laatsch tried to hand over more classified documents at a planned spot in northern Virginia. That’s when he was arrested.
The FBI’s Washington Field Office is leading the investigation, with help from the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Laatsch is charged with trying to transmit national defense information.
