QUANTICO, Va. -- As the Air Force Office of Special Investigations enters 2026, the agency is building on a year aligned with Department of War priorities, including readiness, accountability, deterrence and force protection, while supporting homeland defense, border security and security-assessment missions.
Across AFOSI’s success in 2025 was reflected in measurable outcomes, said the agency’s commander, Brig. Gen. Amy Bumgarner, in areas like insider threat, procurement fraud and counterintelligence operations.
“This year has reflected who AFOSI is as an organization,” Bumgarner said. “At the end of the day, 2025 has been about protecting the mission and the people behind it. We’ve modernized where we needed to, honored the legacies that define us, and never lost sight of the people behind the mission.”
According to officials, much of 2025 was defined by results delivered amid evolving domestic and global security demands, reinforcing the agency’s responsibility to protect the Department of the Air Force and national security.
Throughout the year, AFOSI closed multiple counterintelligence investigations, many conducted through joint efforts, including cases involving the unauthorized disclosure of classified national defense information.
For example, in November, AFOSI Det. 340 worked alongside the FBI to investigate a former military officer and government civilian who pleaded guilty to unlawfully sharing classified operational details from a combatant command using an unauthorized personal device.
In a separate, espionage-related counterintelligence case, AFOSI Det. 204, while also working jointly with the FBI, investigated a civilian employee who pleaded guilty to conspiring to disclose classified national defense information to an overseas contact. He received a five-year prison sentence.
Beyond counterintelligence and force protection, AFOSI’s criminal investigations identified perpetrators and offered victims a pathway to justice. These investigations included multiple cases involving the exploitation of minors, in which AFOSI worked closely with federal law enforcement partners to hold offenders accountable.
In several cases, individuals received significant federal prison sentences, including sentences exceeding 17 years, as well as additional multi-year sentences, after AFOSI-led investigations uncovered efforts to solicit and sexually exploit minors online, through gaming and social media platforms.
In a separate high-profile criminal case, a senior military officer was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison following conviction on multiple serious charges, including the sexual assault of a child and related offenses.
Another defining thread of 2025 was the demonstrated impact of AFOSI’s procurement fraud mission.
Throughout the year, investigations targeted felony-level economic crime across the defense enterprise, including inflated costs, improper billing, false certifications and sourcing violations, as well as failures to meet cybersecurity requirements that threatened the protection of sensitive government data.
Investigations addressed schemes ranging from contract overpricing and misrepresentation of costs to deceptive sourcing practices involving foreign-manufactured equipment falsely certified as U.S.-made.
Protecting tomorrow’s technology
That same focus extended beyond felony-level economic crime. In 2025, safeguarding the technologies that underpin future military advantage became an increasingly central challenge for AFOSI, particularly for the Office of Special Projects (AFOSI PJ), which, like AFOSI’s procurement fraud mission, often operates within the supply-chain ecosystem.
The results of that work were visible in August during the U.S. Space Force’s X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle launch, known as OTV-8. From pre-launch planning through liftoff, AFOSI PJ teams worked alongside Space Systems Command, industry partners and operational units to integrate security and counterintelligence measures that protected the mission’s execution.
The approach, officials said, illustrated how technology protection now operates across multiple domains and begins earlier in the development cycle and extends beyond traditional security boundaries.
Across U.S. innovation corridors, AFOSI also continued to expand its presence into commercial and academic environments, including technology hubs in Silicon Valley, Boston and Austin, Texas, reflecting broader DOW efforts to protect the defense and innovation base.
That was evident in July, when Special Agents toured cutting-edge technology hubs throughout California while hosting a delegation from Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service to observe how technology protection is conducted inside U.S. innovation ecosystems.
The weeklong engagement, led by Special Agent Kevin Alexander, the AFOSI attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, was designed to strengthen NATO coordination around defense innovation and counterintelligence, aligning efforts to protect shared technological advantage.
“Engaging with our allies in person is essential,” Alexander said, in the article. “It was an opportunity for our Polish partners to see how the tech protection mission plays out on the ground, not just from us, but from hearing it directly from the people we work with every day in these places.”
Working alongside counterparts
However, the July engagements in California were not isolated events. They signaled a broader priority that later took shape overseas, when Bumgarner traveled to Europe in the fall to meet with international counterparts in France, Germany and Poland, to reinforce cooperation on counterintelligence, cyber security and the protection of shared technological advantage.
The trip was one piece of a wider effort to for the agency to align counterintelligence priorities with trusted allies facing increasingly complex threats, officials said. That same focus was tested closer to home, too.
Like in January, following the midair collision over the Potomac River, AFOSI’s response in the National Capital Region demonstrated interagency integration under pressure. Working alongside federal law enforcement, military investigative organizations and local authorities, Special Agents supported a multi-agency effort of recovery and evidence gathering.
“AFOSI Special Agents helping with recovery and identification efforts have helped families start the healing process,” said Brig. Gen. Joel W. Safranek, then Deputy Inspector General of the Department of the Air Force, during his Jan. 31 visit to the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB), in Washington, D.C., to commend the team’s efforts.
The Potomac response also brought renewed attention to the people behind the mission.
Among them was Special Agent Sade A. Spencer, commander of AFOSI Det. 336 at JBAB, who was later featured by the installation’s public affairs office for her leadership under pressure, and how she has drawn from her experience in combat environments in her career.
People behind the mission
Throughout 2025, profiles like these have illustrated how individual actions, often far from public view, have defined AFOSI’s mission. Taken together, they have reflected the scope of the agency’s work and the many ways its people shaped mission outcomes.
Some stories centered on moments of crisis, including Special Agent Zachary Angelo’s off-duty rescue of two people from a burning vehicle. Others reflected institutional change, like the promotion of Brig. Gen. Michael Mentavlos and the restoration of a general officer to AFOSI’s mobilization assistant role.
The year also saw the induction of retired Special Agent Richard M. Abbout into the AFOSI Hall of Fame, a selection that AFOSI Command Historian Robert Vanderpool said recognizes a career that helped shape modern investigative and counterintelligence practices throughout the command.
Still other profiles highlighted leadership and expertise developed quietly over time, from senior civilian leaders recognized at the Pentagon for contributions to a sensitive national security mission, to Special Agents like Capt. Daniela Carchedi, whose linguistic and cultural skills strengthened partnerships in contested regions.
Remembering the fallen
Beyond milestones and measurable outcomes, in December, AFOSI marked the 10-year anniversary of the deaths of six members of an AFOSI-led force protection patrol killed near Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, Dec. 21, 2015.
Killed in the attack were Special Agents Adrianna Vorderbruggen, Michael Cinco, Peter Taub and Chester McBride, along with Security Forces members Tech. Sgt. Joseph Lemm and Staff Sgt. Louis Bonacasa, who were both posthumously named honorary Special Agents.
“This was not just a tragic event in AFOSI’s past,” Vanderpool wrote, in a December feature story. “It shaped how the command understands risk, partnership and responsibility in contested environments, and it continues to inform how the mission is carried out today.”
Across the command, AFOSI personnel also mourned the loss of two members of the AFOSI community in July.
Special Agent Brian McCombs, a three-decade AFOSI leader, died July 6 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Okinawa, Japan. As the special agent in charge of AFOSI Det. 624 at Kadena Air Base, McCombs led criminal and counterintelligence investigations across the Ryukyu and Kyushu islands.
Roughly a week later, AFOSI also mourned the death of Tech. Sgt. Matthew P. Carey, an AFOSI Special Agent who died July 14. During his career, he completed deployments to Afghanistan and Africa and served at multiple installations, including Hill Air Force Base, Utah, and Joint Base Lackland, Texas.
Taken together, these moments of loss, remembrance and quiet professionalism underscored a defining reality of 2025, Bumgarner said, that AFOSI’s strength rests not only in cases closed or threats disrupted, but in the people who carry the mission forward and in the legacy they inherit and build upon.
That foundation, she added, positions the agency for 2026, as AFOSI prepares to build on the priorities that defined the past year, including defending the homeland and supporting border security, while continuing to operate in an increasingly complex security environment.
“Entering the next year, we face a security environment shaped by strategic competition, defending the homeland and accelerating technological change,” Bumgarner said. “The experiences of 2025 reinforced that deterrence and readiness are not concepts, but outcomes built every day through enforcement, protection and partnership, often long before threats fully materialize.”