The Story of Robert Hanssen: The Most Harmful Spy in FBI History

It was “the most harmful spy in the history of the FBI”. Robert Hansen, thus described by the federal police on its sitedied on Monday, June 5, at the age of 79 in the prison where he had been incarcerated since 2002, announced the American prison services.

This American agent, in charge of counter-intelligence within the FBI, had sold himself to the Soviets during the Cold War and delivered to Moscow some of his country’s best-kept secrets of the 1980s and 1990s in exchange for 1.4 million dollars and diamonds.

He was found unconscious on Monday morning in his cell at the maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado, where he was serving a life sentence. Efforts to resuscitate him were unsuccessful, according to a statement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

After starting out with the Chicago police, Robert Hanssen was recruited by the FBI in 1976. A few years later, he joined the counterintelligence section of the New York bureau, responsible for tracking down Russian spies on the American soil and to recruit Soviet diplomats to the United Nations.

Caught in flagrante delicto

Taking advantage of this key position, he had quickly offered his help to the intelligence services of the USSR, operating discreetly under the alias “Ramon Garcia” without his dealing officers knowing his true identity.

Alternating posts in New York and Washington, he delivered thousands of pages of documents to the Soviets and then to the Russians, including military plans, counterintelligence software and the names of several double agents operating for the United States. Although the FBI quickly became aware of the existence of a mole in its services, it remained unsuspected for a long time. Married, father of six children, he lived without being noticed, while maintaining close ties with the Catholic elite of the capital.

He was finally implicated in 2000 by a defected Russian. Placed under surveillance in order to study his doings and gestures, he was arrested in February 2001 as he prepared to deposit secret documents for Russian agents in a park in Virginia.

“What we wanted was to get enough evidence to convict him, and the ultimate goal was to catch him in the act”said Debra Evans Smith, former deputy director of the counterintelligence division.

Robert Hanssen avoided the death penalty by agreeing to cooperate with investigators. Admitting to having acted out of greed, he underwent 200 hours of interrogation. In 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of early release.