Director Christopher Wray has named Mehtab D. Syed as the special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence and Cyber Division at the Los Angeles Field Office. Ms. Syed most recently served as a section chief in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Syed joined the FBI as a special agent in 2005 and reported to the New York Field Office to work counterterrorism investigations. She also served on New York’s Crisis Negotiation Team and Rapid Deployment Team.

In 2008, Ms. Syed deployed to Islamabad to serve as the acting assistant legal attaché. In Pakistan, Ms. Syed was responsible for coordinating activities between the law enforcement, intelligence, and security services of multiple governments. After returning to the New York Field Office, Ms. Syed was promoted to supervisory special agent in 2012 and served in the Counterterrorism Division at Headquarters focusing on extraterritorial investigations.

Ms. Syed was appointed assistant legal attaché in Amman, Jordan, in 2015. In this role, she oversaw FBI efforts in the region at the time the U.S. was engaged in efforts against the self-declared Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

In 2017, Ms. Syed returned to the New York Field Office as a supervisory special agent for the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). She also served as the acting assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) of the New York JTTF’s Extraterritorial Branch in 2020.

Later in 2020, Ms. Syed was selected as the ASAC of the Cyber/Counterintelligence Branch at the Newark Field Office. She was promoted in 2022 to section chief and reported to the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters.

Ms. Syed was born in Pakistan and immigrated to the U.S. in 1988. She earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Adelphi University in New York. Prior to joining the FBI, Ms. Syed was a financial analyst in the private sector and also worked as a contract linguist for the FBI.