US insider-threat hunter admits leaking state secrets to foreign government
Nathan Vilas Laatsch was caught trying to pass Secret and Top Secret US information.
Image by Nathan Howard | Reuters
- Nathan Vilas Laatsch pleaded guilty to trying to pass classified DIA information to a friendly foreign government.
- Prosecutors say he copied secrets, saved them to a USB drive, and left it at a Virginia park.
- An FBI agent posed as the foreign contact and arrested him after another document handoff.
- Sentencing is set for January 27th; prosecutors do not plan to seek death or life imprisonment.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
A former civilian IT specialist in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Insider Threat Division pleaded guilty to trying to pass classified US information to a friendly foreign government, hoping to secure citizenship there after expressing disagreement with the Trump administration.
Nathan Vilas Laatsch, 29, became a civilian employee of the DIA in 2019 within the Insider Threat Division. In March 2025, the FBI discovered that he tried to offer classified information to a friendly foreign government.
According to the DOJ, he hand-copied secret information onto a notepad at his desk in April 2025. After smuggling the notes out, he typed up the material, saved it to a USB drive, and left it at a public park in northern Virginia, believing the foreign government would come to take it.
But it was the FBI that retrieved the drive, which included “multiple typed documents, each containing information up to the Secret or Top Secret level”, as well as a message from Laatsch saying that he had chosen to add “a decent sample size” to “decently demonstrate the range of types of products” he could access.
An FBI agent communicated with Laatsch for several weeks, posing as someone affiliated with the foreign government. Laatsch told them that he was interested in “citizenship” in the foreign country, and while he was “not opposed to other compensation,” he did not need “material compensation.”
Although the country was not identified in the court filings, The Washington Post sources said it was Germany.
“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,” Laatsch wrote in one message, according to an FBI affidavit.
“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.”
In one message quoted in the documents, Laatsch said he knew how to avoid the “stupid mistakes” that got other US employees investigated, adding:
“It will not be easy for them, for example, to open a case on me without my knowledge since my permissions to see that would need to be changed and I’d notice.”
A few weeks later, Laatsch smuggled more classified information out of his workplace in his clothing. He was arrested on May 29th in northern Virginia after handing more documents to an undercover FBI agent.
Sentencing is scheduled for January 27th. Although the offense technically carries a maximum sentence of death or life imprisonment, prosecutors do not plan to seek those “draconian” penalties, according to The Washington Post.
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Regardless, Attorney General Todd Blanche said that Laatsch now faces serious consequences. He is being held in jail, but his public defender will seek bail pending trial.
“This case shows that if you unlawfully disclose national defense information, we will find you and hold you accountable to the fullest extent the law allows,” Blanche said.
In 2024, Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira received a 15-year prison sentence for leaking hundreds of classified military documents in a Discord chat group in 2022.
