What we know so far
A former South African Air Force brigadier general has been sentenced to six months in a United States federal prison for secretly acting as an agent of the South African government while working at one of the US Department of Energy’s most sensitive research facilities.
Portia Anyamba, 59, of Knoxville, Tennessee, was sentenced on June 17, 2026, by Judge Thomas A. Varlan in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
Anyamba pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an agent of the Republic of South Africa without notifying the US Attorney General, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 951, and one count of making false statements on a federal security clearance application, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001.
Court documents show Anyamba worked in 2023 and 2024 as a Program Management Operational Specialist in the National Security Program Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), while maintaining regular contact with an intelligence officer from South Africa’s State Security Agency (SSA), identified in court filings only as “IO-1”.
Why it matters
The case centres on ORNL, a Department of Energy facility in Tennessee established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. It now conducts research in energy, artificial intelligence, supercomputing and national security, placing it among the most closely guarded scientific sites in the United States.
Anyamba’s role gave her access to the laboratory’s National Security Program Office, and she was in the process of applying for a US government security clearance that would have granted her access to classified information when the FBI began monitoring her contact with SSA officials.
For South Africa, the case raises questions about the conduct of its state intelligence apparatus on US soil and the SSA’s activities involving a South African national employed inside a US national security facility. Deputy government spokesperson William Baloyi declined to comment on the sentencing when approached by Daily Maverick, leaving South Africa’s official position on the matter unstated.
The identified SSA officer, IO-1, was described in US court records as the agency’s then-Deputy Chief of Station and former Acting Chief of Station at the South African Embassy in Washington, DC, tying the case directly to South Africa’s diplomatic presence in the United States.
Key details and figures
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Anyamba was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, followed by two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $9,500 fine, equivalent to approximately R155 700 at the exchange rate of around R16.39 to the dollar recorded on July 9, 2026.
Court documents detail two surveilled encounters between Anyamba and IO-1. In February 2024, FBI agents watched the pair meet at a restaurant in a Knoxville commercial district before moving to a nearby hotel, along with a third individual known to the FBI as affiliated with the South African government. Agents later observed Anyamba return home and retrieve an item from her car.
Ahead of a second planned meeting, IO-1 messaged Anyamba: “Please remember to also bring the laptop with!” On November 7, 2024, FBI personnel intercepted Anyamba in Knoxville’s Turkey Creek shopping district immediately before that meeting and seized a laptop computer from her.
On her SF-86 security clearance questionnaire, a form that warns applicants that false information can carry criminal penalties, Anyamba certified she had no continuing contact with a foreign national and had not had contact with representatives of a foreign government in the preceding seven years. Prosecutors said both answers were knowingly false. She also told individuals listed as her references: “I have just gotten information that they have started with the interviews. They are sensitive about foreign connections. So please don’t mention anything about the embassy.”
The investigation was led by the FBI’s Nashville Field Office and the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. US Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III said his office and its law enforcement partners “will remain diligent in ensuring that [ORNL’s] employees — and all government personnel entrusted with access to sensitive information — are trustworthy, candid, and pose no risk to national security.” FBI Nashville Special Agent in Charge Terence G. Reilly said Anyamba “knowingly acted as an agent of a foreign country which placed national security at risk.”
Assistant US Attorneys Kyle J. Wilson and Casey T. Arrowood prosecuted the case for the Eastern District of Tennessee, with Trial Attorney Nicholas Hunter of the Justice Department’s National Security Division Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.
What happens next
Anyamba’s six-month prison term will be followed by two years of supervised release, during which her activities and contacts are expected to face ongoing federal monitoring. Neither the US Attorney’s Office nor South African authorities have indicated whether IO-1 or the unnamed third individual present at the February 2024 meeting face any separate legal consequence in the United States or South Africa.
South Africa’s government has not issued a substantive public response beyond the “no comment” given to Daily Maverick, leaving open whether the Presidency, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, or the State Security Agency itself will address the case, including IO-1’s identity and status at the Washington embassy.
It also remains unclear whether Anyamba’s security clearance application was ultimately granted or denied before the FBI intervened, or what information, if any, she may have accessed or transmitted during her time at ORNL. The Department of Justice’s press release did not address either question, and no additional charges beyond the two counts to which Anyamba pleaded guilty have been disclosed.
