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Robert P. Hanssen was a former F.B.I. agent, who spied for Moscow intermittently for greater than 20 years amid and following the Chilly Conflict has died. US Federal authorities notified that he was found useless in his jail cell in Colorado on Monday. He was 79.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons declared in a press release that at the US Penitentiary Florence, the place he was serving a life sentence, Hanssen was found unresponsive shortly earlier than 7 a.m. After intensive life-saving measures by emergency medical personnel, he was formally declared deceased. The reason for loss of life has not been not specified within the assertion.
Hanssen’s case was distinguished as a extremely notorious spy scandal in his era, leaving F.B.I. leaders and authorities officers surprised once they found that one among their very own had been transferring data to the opposite facet for an prolonged time period. Even right now, the F.B.I. refers to him as “essentially the most damaging spy in bureau historical past.”
Hanssen exchanged a considerable sum of $1.4 million in money, financial institution funds, and diamonds for which he traded a mess of labeled data with Moscow. Among the many disclosed secrets and techniques was the revelation that the US authorities had constructed a tunnel beneath the Soviet embassy in Washington, permitting for the covert interception of diplomatic and different forms of communications. Moreover, he offered Moscow with particulars relating to three Ok.G.B. officers who had been engaged in covert espionage on behalf of the US, ensuing within the subsequent execution of two of them.
“The magnitude of Hanssen’s crimes can’t be overstated”, remarked Paul J. McNulty, the U.S. legal professional who was chargeable for prosecution, stated on Monday in response to the information of his demise. “They may lengthy be remembered as being among the many most egregious betrayals of belief in U.S. historical past. It was each a low level and an investigative success for the FBI”.
After becoming a member of the FBI in 1976 as a particular agent, Mr. Hanssen held numerous counterintelligence roles that granted him entry to labeled knowledge. It was three years into his tenure when he commenced spying for the Soviet Union. he initiated his espionage actions when he was appointed to a counterintelligence unit in New York, approaching the New York places of work of Amtorg, a Soviet commerce group acknowledged as a entrance for the Soviet army intelligence company.
Between 1980 and a number of other years thereafter, Hanssen halted his espionage actions following an incident at his residence in Westchester County, N.Y. His spouse, Bonnie, unexpectedly found him within the basement, prompting him to swiftly conceal his papers. Subsequently, he confessed his actions to his spouse and a priest related to Opus Dei, the conservative Catholic group with which the couple was affiliated.
In 1985, Hanssen resumed his espionage actions, resupplying data to the Ok.G.B. Nonetheless, this time he adopted extra environment friendly measures to hide his actions. Using encrypted communications and different covert methods, he the truth is remained utterly nameless even to his Russian handlers.
Throughout the Nineteen Nineties, following the apprehension of Aldrich Ames, a C.I.A. agent engaged in Russian espionage, each the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. grew to become conscious of one other undisclosed particular person who was nonetheless supplying labeled data to Russia. Consequently, they launched an operation “Graysuit” to uncover the unidentified agent. Nonetheless, it wasn’t till 2000 that investigators made important progress of their pursuit.
The F.B.I. paid a former Russian intelligence officer $7 million for a file containing data on the elusive mole, who referred to himself as B. Inside the file was an audio recording that includes a voice that two F.B.I. analysts, aware of Mr. Hanssen, finally acknowledged.
Utilizing fingerprints, the F.B.I. definitively confirmed the id of the mole as Mr. Hanssen. They then carried out surveillance on him for a number of months, even granting him a promotion as a method to intently monitor him. In February 2001, he was apprehended in Foxstone Park, located within the Vienna space of Washington, D.C., mere blocks away from his place of residence. The arrest occurred shortly after he had left labeled paperwork in a trash bag at a predetermined “useless drop” location below a wood footbridge, meant for his Russian handlers.
Upon his arrest, Mr. Hanssen displayed an absence of shock, reportedly arrogantly questioning, “What took you so lengthy?” This response indicated a level of anticipation regarding his apprehension. In 2003, a report from the Justice Division’s inspector basic highlighted that the standard motives that normally drive traitors previously, akin to greed, ideology, profession setbacks, resentment, and substance abuse, weren’t pertinent to Hanssen’s conduct.
The case of Mr. Hanssen revealed a major failure inside the American intelligence equipment, as his skill to evade detection was a evident flaw. Mr. Hanssen’s personal brother-in-law, who was additionally an F.B.I. worker, had raised suspicions about him to the bureau a decade previous to his arrest. Nonetheless, the supervisor to whom he reported the issues had dismissed them, additional emphasizing the missed alternatives to apprehend Hanssen earlier.
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