Former Defence Intelligence Agency IT specialist Nathan Vilas Laatsch has pleaded guilty to attempting to provide classified US intelligence to what court documents described as a “friendly foreign government”, after an FBI undercover operation. The case is particularly notable because Laatsch had been assigned to the DIA’s Insider Threat Division, which is responsible for identifying suspected leaks of classified information.

Laatsch, a civilian DIA employee since 2019 with top-secret clearance, contacted the foreign government in March 2025 and offered completed and unprocessed intelligence. Prosecutors said he copied information into handwritten notes, concealed them in his socks and lunchbox, then left a thumb drive in an Arlington, Virginia park in May 2025; the FBI recovered nine typed documents, eight containing classified information. He was arrested that month, aged 28, and is now 29.