By Steve Neavling
Mehtab D. Syed has been named special agent in charge of the Counterintelligence and Cyber Division at the Los Angeles Field Office.
Before the appointment, Syed served as a section chief in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI headquarters.
Syed became an FBI special agent in 2005 and worked on counterterrorism investigations at the New York Field Office. 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, Syed was tasked with coordinating activities between the law enforcement, intelligence, and security services of multiple governments.
After returning to the New York Field Office, Syed became supervisory special agent in 2012 and served in the Counterterrorism Division at headquarters to focus on extraterritorial investigations.
In 2015, Syed was appointed assistant legal attaché in Amman, Jordan, where she oversaw FBI efforts in the region.
In 2017, 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 of the New York JTTF’s Extraterritorial Branch in 2020.
Later in 2020, Syed was named assistant special agent in charge of the Cyber/Counterintelligence Branch at the Newark Field Office.
In 2022, she was promoted to section chief and reported to the Counterintelligence Division at FBI headquarters.
Syed was born in Pakistan and immigrated to the U.S. in 1988. She received a bachelor’s degree in finance from Adelphi University in New York.
Before joining the bureau, Syed was a financial analyst in the private sector.
