Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. Robert Hanssen moments after being arrested. Hanssen warned the KGB that Bloch was being investigated, causing the KGB to end contact with him abruptly. Furthermore, she supported her husband when he was first incarcerated for theft, and then for abducting and sexually abusing a housewife and a prostitute (although the rape charge concerning the latter was dropped when he pleaded guilty.) Special Agent Don Sullivan, a squad supervisor at the FBIs Washington Field Office at the time, volunteered to replace Hanssen. An official website of the United States government. The full extent of the damage done is yet unknown because no accurate damage assessment could be conducted without jeopardizing the investigation. For a while he was in contact with Priscilla Sue Galey, a stripper in Washington, who received cash, jewelry and other benefits from Hanssen. After the transfer, while on a business visit back to Washington, D.C., he resumed his espionage career. He established contact with the SVR (the successor to the Soviet-era KGB) during the autumn of 1999. The October 1 letter began a long, active espionage period for Hanssen. After her children endured relentless bullying at school, she decided that her best path led out of Alaska (via The Cinemaholic). He visited an office of the Russian government's trading company and offered to spy. He became an agent in 1976, and spent two years working in the Indianapolis, Indiana, field office. Did you encounter any technical issues? In January 1976, he left the police department to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[4]. Polyakov was carefully watched by the Russians from that point on, and was eventually arrested as a spy and executed in 1988. [12] Hanssen received an MBA in accounting and information systems in 1971 and took a job with an accounting firm. . In the 1990s, after the arrest of Aldrich Ames, the FBI and CIA realized that a mole within the intelligence community was still sharing classified information with the Russians. Hanssen became alarmed that a Russian with knowledge of his activities would tip off the Americans that a highly placed mole was operating within the FBI and the resultant investigation would lead to him. He used encrypted communications, dead drops, and other clandestine methods to provide information to the KGB and its successor agency, the SVR. I am shamed by it," Hanssen told U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton. On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested at a park in northern Virginia after he had placed a package at a dead drop location. Hanssen was recalled yet again to Washington, D.C., in 1987. At work, he often spoke of his religious faith and conservative values, traits which helped him avoid any suspicion during the years that he was in secret communication with Russian spies. Ames was officially blamed for giving Polyakov's name to the Soviets, while Hanssen's attempt was not revealed until after his 2001 capture. He also designated a code to be used when dates were exchanged. [62] Hanssen took the risk of recommending to his handlers that they try to recruit his closest friend, a colonel in the United States Army. [7][8] On May 10, 2002, Hanssen was sentenced to 15 consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. FBI career and first espionage activities (19761981), FBI counterintelligence unit, further espionage activities (19851991), Later FBI career, continued espionage activities (19922001), Lynch, Christopher, The C.I. Instead, he ultimately became the most damaging spy in. Hanssens espionage activities began in 1985. Hansen was convicted of just four of the murders in a deal that spared him . Robert Philip Hanssen (born April 18, 1944) is an American former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) double agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001. "[3] Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. She supports the plea agreement and agrees that the sentence of life in prison without parole, rather than the death penalty, is appropriate in these circumstances.. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/robert-hanssen-4587832. Marriage: Bernadette Bonnie (Wauck) Hanssen (August 10, 1968-present), Children: Lisa, Greg, Mark, John Jack, Sue and Jane, Education: Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, A.B. His active and long stint as a Soviet spy began on October 1, 1985, when he sent an unsigned letter to KGB, where he mentioned the names of at least three agents of KGB who were covertly serving FBI. Once when Bonnie caught his espionage, he made a confession to an Opus Dei priest, donated cash to Catholic charity and gave his word of never spying again. The FBI entrusted him with some of the most sensitive secrets of the United States Government and instead of being humbled by this honor, Hanssen has allegedly abused and betrayed that trust. On May 10, 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In 1962 he completed his graduation from William Howard Taft High School. [60] He refused to use the dead drop sites that his handler, Victor Cherkashin, suggested and instead chose his own. Later, he hid a video camera in the bedroom connected via a closed-circuit television line so that Hoschouer could observe the Hanssens from his guest bedroom. In what is now considered the largest intelligence breach in FBI history, Robert Hanssen's scandal made him millions in diamonds and cash, but cost the FBI $7 million and the lives of three informants. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets. Therefore, after he was given a 461-year sentence for his crimes, she chose to divorce him. I intend to act swiftly on his recommendations. Their goal was to catch Hanssen red handed in espionage. Butcher, Baker: The True Account of an Alaskan Serial Killer. Ames was arrested in 1994. [38], The existence of two Russian moles working in the U.S. security and intelligence establishment simultaneouslyAmes at the CIA and Hanssen at the FBIcomplicated counterintelligence efforts during the 1990s. [36], IT personnel from the National Security Division's IIS Unit were sent to investigate Hanssen's desktop computer after a reported failure. With the mole finally identified, locations, dates, and cases were matched with Hanssen's activities during the period. By. The FBI paid $7 million to a KGB agent to obtain a file on an anonymous mole, whom the FBI later identified as Hanssen through fingerprint and voice analysis. Hanssen disclosed this information to the Soviets in September 1989 and received a $55,000 payment the next month, equivalent to $120,232 in 2021. [56][57], Hanssen never told the KGB or GRU his identity and refused to meet them personally, except for the abortive 1993 contact in the Russian embassy parking garage. FBI agents remove evidence from Robert Hanssen's home in Vienna, Virginia on February 20, 2001. . But Brookner said Hanssens family was never the beneficiary of any spy money and that Bonnie Hanssen has no idea what happened to the proceeds from his spying, including $800,000 that authorities say the Russians deposited for him in a Moscow bank. Robert Hansen died at the age of 75 in 2014, still safely behind bars (via theAnchorage Daily News). We particularly appreciate the unhesitating leadership and support of Attorney General Ashcroft from the moment he took office. Hanssen refused. [32] The following year, after the Russian Federation assumed control of the defunct Soviet spy agencies, Hanssen made a risky approach to the GRU, with whom he had not been in contact in ten months. News reports at the time of his sentencing said American intelligence agencies were not entirely satisfied with the extent of his cooperation and believed he was holding back information. In the end, officials believed his claim that he was merely demonstrating flaws in the FBI's security system. He then enrolled at the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to study dentistry but after three years shifted to business studies. This innocent looking house in Vienna used to belong to Russian spy Robert Hanssen before he was caught by the Feds. As an agency, we lived up to our responsibility, regardless of how painful it might be. The pension was an important consideration for Hanssen in his plea negotiations, Brookner said. No one knew Hansen was abducting some of these women and killing them for sport. Judge Webster is uniquely qualified as a former FBI Director, CIA Director and Director of Central Intelligence to undertake this review. She went with Hanssen on visits to Hong Kong and the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia. Hanssen gave them the name of a Russian general, Dimitri Polyakov, who had been providing information to the Americans. As Director of the FBI, I am proud of the courageous men and women of the FBI who each day make enormous sacrifices in serving their country. "[55], Hanssen is Federal Bureau of Prisons prisoner #48551-083. He often steered conversations to talk of religion and his very conservative values, which were aligned with the very conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. "Robert Hanssen, FBI Agent Who Became a Soviet Mole." His bride left him after six months when Hansen was put in prison for setting fire to the local school district's bus barns. It was not a very demanding job, said Sullivan. Interestingly, Hansen got married twice. Its amazing to live with a man for all those years and not know him.. Sunday night the FBI arrested Robert Philip Hanssen who has been charged with committing espionage. After Bonnie Hanssen confronted her husband, he told her that he had been in contact with his Soviet intelligence counterparts only as a ploy to trick them with disinformation, the attorney said. He could sit in his office and shut the door. [37], During the same period, Hanssen searched the FBI's internal computer case record to see if he was being investigated. Robert Hanssen is a former FBI agent who sold highly classified material to Russian intelligence agents for decades before he was finally arrested in 2001. Robert Christian Boes Hansen was born in Estherville, Iowa, at Coleman Hospital on February 15, 1939, the elder of two children to an American mother and a Danish father. His assistant, Eric ONeill, was tasked with keeping investigators apprised of Hanssens movements. Robert Hansen was a reputed baker and a married man with two children living in Anchorage, Alaska. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/robert-hanssen-6997.php. Hanssen was arrested on February 18, 2001, at Foxstone Park,[5] near his home in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Vienna, Virginia, after leaving a package of classified materials at a dead drop site. He received $5,00,000 and jewellery for this work. Waguespack listened to the tape again and recognized the voice as belonging to Hanssen. McNamara, Robert. House Belonging To Former Spy Robert Hanssen Won't Sell. Robert was described as a loner and a quiet person, and he had a strained relationship as well with his strict and dominating father. 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