Photo: PAUL J. RICHARDS / AFP / Getty Images
The 10 May 2002, Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who intermittently sold secrets of state to Russia for two decades, received his sentence for espionage: life in prison without the possibility of parole .
“I apologize for my behavior. I am ashamed,” Hanssen said. “I have opened the door to slander against my totally innocent wife and children. I have deeply hurt many.”
Hanssen, who began working with Soviet military intelligence in 1979, was arrested in the 18 February 2001 after a former KGB officer revealed information to the FBI that identified him as a double agent.
Accepted a plea bargain, which reduced the 21 charges against you to 15, guaranteed his wife a portion of his pension and ownership of their home in Virginia and eliminated the possibility of the death penalty. In return, Hanssen agreed to provide federal investigators with detailed accounts of his years as a spy.
Special Agent Van Harp, then head of the FBI Washington field office, referred to Hanssen’s sentence as the “closing of the darkest chapter in the history of the FBI”.
Hanssen had provided the Russians with classified materials, including the identities of three KGB officers who were spying on behalf of the US, details about US nuclear operations, and information about the existence of a secret tunnel that the US government is using. The US dug under the Soviet embassy in Washington to eavesdrop.
Among the most significant revelations that Hanssen, under the alias of “Ramón García” with his Russian accountants, shared with Russia was the identity of a high-ranking mole for the US, Russian General Dmitri Polyakov, who for the next eight years may have provided the US with false or misleading intelligence.
Hanssen was serving as member of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions at the time suspicions arose around him
Instead of being an ideological traitor, Hanssen’s motivations are believed to have been monetary. Received over $1.4 million in assets from Russia , included 800.000 dollars that were deposited in a Russian bank, two Rolex watches and approximately 410.000 dollars in the form of diamonds and cash.
Hanssen was the third agent in FBI history charged with espionage.
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