By Steve Neavling
Elena Iatarola has been named special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati Field Office.
Iatarola, who most recently was serving as section chief in the Security Division, joined the bureau as a special agent in 1997. Her first assignment was at the El Paso Field Office, where she investigated violent and transnational organized crime.
In 2008, she was promoted to serve as supervisory special agent in the Indianapolis Field Office’s Merrillville Resident Agency and led two Safe Street Task Forces in northern Indiana.
Beginning in 2012, Iatarola moved to the Las Vegas Field Office, where she was a field supervisor overseeing criminal and international terrorism investigations.
Then in 2017, Iatarola became a team leader in the Inspection Division at FBI headquarters.
She returned to Las Vegas in 2018 to serve as the program coordinator for the Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking programs.
In 2019, Iatarola was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Intelligence and Administrative branches of the Denver Field Office. In 2021, she was the on-scene commander following a mass shooting at a Boulder grocery store that killed 10 people.
In 2022, Iatarola became section chief of the Suitability and Security Clearance Section in the Security Division.
Before joining the bureau, Iatarola was a police officer with the Henderson Police Department in Nevada. She received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Indiana University, a master’s degree in public administration from Calumet College of St. Joseph University in Indiana, and a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
