Robert Hanssen, 79, one of America’s most infamous spies, was found dead on Monday at a maximum-security prison in Colorado.
“Robert Hanssen’s death brings a somber end to one of the most infamous espionage cases in U.S. history,” Javed Ali, former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council said.
According to Ali, Hanssen committed treachery to his country in exchange for money that led to the massive impairment of American national security by revealing a substantial quantity of exceedingly delicate U.S. intelligence data, the status of ongoing FBI inquiries, and the identity of human resources.
Hanssen AKA “Ramon Garcia”
Using the alias “Ramon Garcia,” Hanssen began working with handlers from the Soviet Union in 1985. According to the FBI, he traded highly sensitive national security intelligence for $1.4 million.
Hanssen provided information to the KGB and Soviet Union using encrypted communications, “dead drops,” including one just outside of Washington, D.C., at a park in Fairfax County, Virginia.
According to the FBI, Hanssen sent off packages containing more than 6,000 pages of top-secret information to Russian authorities on more than 20 different occasions at various locations in the Washington region. Some of the information, according to the administration, was used to find secret human sources in Russia.
FBI mole
The agencies realized that there was a mole inside the FBI after the FBI detained CIA analyst Aldrich Ames, who was found guilty of espionage.
According to information from the case, Hanssen was sent back to FBI headquarters and given a fictitious position after the FBI believed he might be a spy while he was employed at the State Department.
By 2001, authorities thought Hanssen would deliver intelligence via a “dead drop” at a park in Virginia, close to Washington. Agents claimed to have seen Hanssen exchange a small bag with sensitive data for $50,000 in cash.
On July 6, 2001, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of release on May 10, 2002.
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