An FBI agent who spied for Russia dies in prison where he was serving 15 life sentences

The agent of fbi Robert Hansenwho spied for the extinct Soviet Union and then for Russiadied this Monday in jail where he was serving fifteen consecutive life sentences for betraying USA

Hanssen, 79, was “found unconscious” around 06:55 local time (12:55 GMT) in the federal jail “super max” in Florencein Coloradothe Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.

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The note does not provide details about the reason for his death, although it does specify that no prisoner or prison staff members were injured and that there was no danger to the public at any time.

The prisoner was pronounced dead by emergency services workers who treated him at the scene.

Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen’s identification and business card are seen inside a display case at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, on May 12, 2009. (Photo by Paul J. RICHARDS/AFP) (PAUL J .RICHARDS/)

Hanssen was arrested in 2001 and pleaded guilty to fifteen counts of espionage for selling highly classified material to the Soviet Union already Russia during the last years of the Cold War. He had been in a Colorado prison since 2002.

On its website, the FBI describes it as “the most harmful spy“of his story, as he gave the Russians national security information”in exchange for $1.4 million in cash, bank funds and diamonds”. His espionage activities began in 1985, nine years after he joined the fbi.

Hanssen operated under the moniker “Ramon Garcia” with the Russians and provided sensitive information, which compromised “numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, and dozens of classified government documents”, among others, to the KGB and the agency that succeeded it, the SVR, indicates the FBI.

Thanks to his experience and training, Hanssen went under the radar for years, although his activities raised suspicions during his time with Moscow.

In the 1990s, after the arrest of a CIA agent aldrich ames Working for the Russians, this agency and the FBI realized that there must be another Russian spy in their ranks, who was sharing classified information, until they found Hanssen.

The American was arrested after he was caught in the act at a park in Virginiawhere he was trying to contact another Russian spy.

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Months later, he pleaded guilty to selling thousands of classified documents to Moscow with data on the US strategy against a nuclear war and with counterintelligence information, among others.

Hanssen also alerted the Russians to the existence of a secret tunnel built by the FBI under the Russian Embassy in Washington to carry out wiretaps and was accused of compromising dozens of Russians who had collaborated with the US, some of whom were executed.

At the time, he Justice Department He described this situation as “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in US history.”.

Source: Elcomercio