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Robert Hanssen was 79 years old when he died on Monday. He was in one of the harshest prisons in USA serving 15 life sentences for betraying his country with its worst enemy, Russia. This is his story.
Before falling out of favor, this former FBI agent earned more than $1.4 million in cash and diamonds for turning over intelligence secrets from United States to Russia already the old Soviet Union.
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hansen was “found unconscious” at 06:55 in the morning (12:55 GMT) on Monday at the federal prison USP Florence ADMAXin Colorado.
“Rescue personnel immediately initiated measures to save his life. Staff requested emergency medical services (EMS) and efforts to save his life continued… Mr. Hanssen was subsequently pronounced dead by EMS personnel.”USP Florence ADMAX prison said in a statement.
He had been confined since July 17, 2002 in the prison where the worst criminals of USA.
According to CNN, Robert Hansen began to spy for the Soviet Union in 1979, three years after entering the fbi as a special agent.
He had been assigned to the counterintelligence unit in NYwhere he came into contact with the offices of Amtorgthe Soviet trade organization that was used as a front for its espionage operations, according to The New York Times.
with the Soviets operated under the nickname “Ramón García”. During the years that he betrayed the United States, he provided the KGB and its successor, SVR, with sensitive information that compromised “numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations and dozens of classified government documents,” according to the FBI.
In a letter supposedly written by Robert Hansen to the Russians, said that he had been inspired as a teenager by the memoirs of the British double agent kim philbyreported CNN.
“I decided on this path when I was 14 years old”, says the letter cited in an affidavit that is in the possession of the FBI. “I had read Philby’s book. Now that’s crazy.”
It should be noted that kim philby He is considered the most important double agent of the 20th century. He was recruited by the Soviet Union in the early 1930s and sent vital information to Moscow during the Second World War and the first years of the Cold War, recalls BBC Mundo.
The New York Times indicates that hansen stopped his activities in 1980, after his wife, bonnie, caught him conducting espionage in his basement in Westchester County, New York. He ended up confessing his double life to his wife and to a priest linked to Opus Dei, the ultra-conservative Catholic organization to which the couple belonged.
Univision explains that in 1985 Hanssen resumed his espionage activities and contacted the KGB. Over the next 16 years, he earned millions in cash payments, bank funds and diamonds.
The agency EFE indicates that after the arrest of the CIA agent aldrich ames In 1994 for working for the Russians, the agency and the FBI realized that there was another Russian spy in their ranks who was betraying them, who was sharing classified information. they suspected hansen.
He fbi began monitoring him in 2000, after he was identified from a fingerprint and a recording provided by a disgruntled Russian intelligence agent. Some 300 agents were behind him to make him fall with irrefutable evidence.
“What we wanted to do was get enough evidence to convict him, and the ultimate goal was to catch him in the act.“, said Debra Evans-Smithformer Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division.
Robert Hansen lived in a modest four-room house in Virginia with his wife and six children.
BBC Mundo indicates that in January 2001, hansen was assigned to a new office at the headquarters of the fbiwhich was full of hidden cameras and microphones.
Finally, he was captured on February 18, 2001, when he was trying to contact another Russian spy in a park. Virginia to deliver classified documents to you.
When he was arrested, hansen asked the FBI agents: “What took you so long?”
Subsequently, pleaded guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for the government not seeking the death penalty.
He admitted that he sold thousands of classified documents to Russia with data on the strategy of USA in the face of nuclear war, and what the country would do to protect senior government officials.
He also said he alerted the Russians to the existence of a secret tunnel built by the FBI under the Russian Embassy in Washington for wiretapping.
He was accused of compromising dozens of Russians who had collaborated with the United States. Some of them were executed after being discovered.
hansen he had shared details of various US technical operations, including wiretapping, surveillance and interception of communications.
Investigators discovered that he had full access to the FBI and State Department computer systems and that he would spend hours searching for classified information without being detected.
CNN said that despite his contact with sensitive US intelligence information related to the Soviet Union and Russia, he was never subjected to a polygraph test.
the 2002 he was sentenced to 15 life sentences consecutive sentences for betraying the United States.
During his trial, hansen apologized: “I feel ashamed about it. Beyond its illegality, I have broken the trust of many. Worse yet, I have opened the door to slander against my totally innocent wife and our children. I have done them a lot of damage. I have deeply hurt so many,” he said.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
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