The US Justice Department has announced the arrest of a computer scientist from the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) who is accused of trying to pass classified information to a representative of a foreign government.
According to the US agency’s website, Nathan Vilas Latch, 28, was arrested at a location where he arranged to pass documents labelled ‘Secret’ or ‘Top Secret’ to a person he believed to be a representative of a foreign government. In reality, he was communicating with an FBI agent.
‘In the email, the sender wrote that he ‘disagreed with and did not support the values of this administration’ and was therefore ‘willing to share classified information’ to which he had access, including ‘completed intelligence products, some raw intelligence, and other miscellaneous classified documentation,’’ the agency points out.’
During a special operation to capture a Pentagon employee, Latch provided, to an undercover agent, a flash drive. The message from him indicated that he decided to include a ‘decent sample size’ of classified information in his report to ‘decently demonstrate the range of product types’ to which he had access.
During his communications with the undercover agent, Latch stated that he was interested in obtaining foreign citizenship because he did not expect ‘things to improve here in the long term.’
The DOJ did not specify which country the FBI agent was disguised as, but described it as friendly or allied.
