Overview

• Nathan Vilas Laatsch, a 28-year-old IT specialist in the DIA’s Insider Threat Division, held a Top Secret security clearance and has worked at the agency since 2019.
• The FBI launched an undercover counterintelligence operation in March after a tip that Laatsch offered classified national defense information to what he believed was a foreign government official.
• On May 1, surveillance captured Laatsch depositing a thumb drive containing Secret and Top Secret documents at a public park for retrieval by an undercover agent.
• Court documents reveal he later sought citizenship from the perceived foreign government in exchange for supplying additional classified materials.
• Laatsch was taken into custody on May 29 during an attempted second drop of classified documents and now faces federal charges in the Eastern District of Virginia.