"[3] Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. One notable example was the information that the Americans had dug a tunnel under the Russian embassy in Washington to install sophisticated listening devices. As difficult as this moment is for the FBI and for the country, I am immensely proud of the men and women who conducted this investigation. However, even though Hansen would go to church with his wife, nothing really changed. After his release 20 months later, Hansen worked at putting his life back in order. May 16, 2001 - Is indicted on 21 counts of spying for the Soviet Union/Russia and passing top secret material to the Soviet Union/Russia. Unlike Cold War spies of an earlier era, Hanssen claimed to have no political motivation for selling out his country. Press Release - Veteran FBI Agent Arrested and Charged with Espionage, FBI.gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice. He began providing the Soviets with highly valuable material. A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States. While not identifying himself, he was able to gain their trust by initially providing information which the Soviets found both credible and valuable. [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. The agents working for him reported this breach to a supervisor, but no action was taken. FBI and CIA personnel who debriefed Hanssen about his 21 years. 2:02 PM EDT, Thu April 14, 2022, FBI Agent Robert Philip Hanssen is shown in this undated file photo, released by the FBI February 20, 2001. Hanssen pled guilty to 15 counts of espionage on July 6, 2001. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/robert-hanssen-4587832. The FBI believes that the Russians never knew the name of their source. During his sessions with investigators, Hanssen claimed his motivation had always been financial. Robert Hanssen moments after being arrested. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. (Serial Killer) Robert Christian Hansen was a convicted serial killer from America who abducted, raped, and murdered at least 17 women in and around Anchorage, Alaska, in the 1970s and early 1980s. Hanssen's section evaluated Soviet agents who volunteered to give intelligence to determine whether they were genuine or re-doubled agents. Judge Webster is uniquely qualified as a former FBI Director, CIA Director and Director of Central Intelligence to undertake this review. In his office, Hanssen had full access to the FBIs Automated Case Support (ACS) system and the State Departments computer systems. The one thing the father and son would eventually have in common is their interest in hunting. We believe it was exceptionally grave. Thereafter he enrolled in Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and in 1966 completed his bachelor degree with Chemistry as major. May 31, 2001 - Pleads not guilty to all charges. The Hanssen case was regarded as a low point for the FBI, especially as Hanssen had been so trusted and had committed such betrayals for so many years. In the end, officials believed his claim that he was merely demonstrating flaws in the FBI's security system. Imagine finding out that your husband is a ruthless serial rapist and murderer. "Robert Hanssen, FBI Agent Who Became a Soviet Mole." Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. May 10, 2002 - Is sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. Robert Hansen's Parents. His assistant, Eric ONeill, was tasked with keeping investigators apprised of Hanssens movements. He did well in his elective, Russian. "Robert Hanssen, FBI Agent Who Became a Soviet Mole." In 1979, three years after joining the FBI, Hanss 2000 - The FBI identifies Hanssen from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative. Regrettably, I stand here today both saddened and outraged. On May 10, 2002, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. He had been married twice, and fathered children. An official website of the United States government. He will report directly to the Attorney General and me and we will share his report with the National Security Council and Congress. Today, Mrs. Hanssen is teaching at a Catholic school in suburban Virginia and is living in the house she shared with her husband and their six children. Darla earned a living for the household as well, teaching children with disabilities. He met his second wife, Darla, shortly after his parole. 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. Though the government alleges that Robert Hanssen, 56,. I dont think there was anybody more shocked by all this, Brookner said. They have committed their lives to public service and to upholding the high standards of the FBI. The Soviets, suspicious of being lured into a trap, demanded to meet him. [27][28] When the Soviets began construction on a new embassy during 1977, the FBI dug a tunnel beneath their decoding room. Intelligence officials began debriefing Hanssen this week, defense attorney Preston Burton said Thursday. She would use her money to run the household and support the couple's children, while Hansen would spend the money he made at the bakery on "his own needs," according to what she would later tell Sergeant Flothe, who played a pivotal role in his capture. However, two cases- the Bloch investigation and the embassy tunnel- remained unsolved. Hanssen was tracked from the time he left his house in Fairfax County, Virginia, to the time he got home at night, and it was confirmed that he was still an active spy. As a result of these assignments within the FBI, Hanssen gained access to some of the most sensitive and highly classified information in the United States Government. He often steered conversations to talk of religion and his very conservative values, which were aligned with the very conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. At least three Russian agents he identified had been executed, and it was suspected that he compromised dozens of intelligence operations. 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. Throughout his spying, Hanssen remained anonymous to the Russians. He had opportunity. This brief union did not produce any children. He was born on April 18, 1944, in Chicago, Illinois, to Howard and Vivian Hanssen. 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. He is serving his sentence at the ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado, in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. Each time, I share the pride and sanctity of those words when new agents swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.. 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. Hanssen made the donation to a charity affiliated with Mother Teresa, and cut off contact with the Soviets for the next few years. [16] CIA and FBI officials, including Deputy Director William Sullivan, believed that, at some point, Polyakov was made into a triple agent by the Soviets, who thereby deceived the West with misinformation. [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. 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. 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. "Butcher, Baker" was adapted into the 2013 film "The Frozen Ground," starring Nicholas Cage, John Cusack, and Vanessa Hudgens (per IMDb). [67], At Hanssen's suggestion, and without his wife's knowledge, a friend named Jack Hoschouer, a retired Army officer, would sometimes watch the Hanssens having sex through a bedroom window. [60] He refused to use the dead drop sites that his handler, Victor Cherkashin, suggested and instead chose his own. In January 2001, Hanssen moved into a small office in FBI Headquarters secretly outfitted with surveillance cameras and microphones. The October 1 letter began a long, active espionage period for Hanssen. When Robert Hansen was arrested in 1983, it would soon be revealed that this mild-mannered Alaskan baker was responsible for the deaths of as many as 17 young women in the Last Frontier. [30], In 1990, Hanssen's brother-in-law, Mark Wauck, who was also an FBI employee, recommended to the FBI that Hanssen be investigated for espionage because his sister, Hanssen's wife, told him that her sister, Jeanne Beglis, had found a pile of cash on a dresser in the Hanssens' house. 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. Many of them were agents of the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, or its military counterpart, the GRU. Though both Hansen and his wife earned respectable incomes, it would . He quit after one year and joined the Chicago Police Department as an internal affairs investigator, specializing in forensic accounting. [46][47][48], The FBI surveilled Hanssen and soon discovered he was again in contact with the Russians. Our joint efforts over the last several years and specifically in this case should give pause to those contemplating betrayal of the Nations trust. A lock () or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. 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. Hanssen ensured that he did not reveal himself with his study, but in addition, he gave the entire studyincluding the list of all Soviets who had contacted the FBI about FBI molesto the KGB in 1988. Hansen opened a bakery and learned how to fly the small plane that he purchased. McNamara, Robert. Hanssens espionage activities began in 1985. As alleged in the complaint, computer forensic analysis, substantial covert surveillance, court authorized searches and other sensitive techniques revealed that Hanssen has routinely accessed FBI records and clandestinely provided those records and other classified information to Russian intelligence officers. I take solace and satisfaction, however, that the FBI succeeded in this investigation. As Hanssen walked back to his car, the arrest team rushed up and took him into custody. The complaint alleges that he received over $600,000. [41] The idea that an FBI agent was the second mole was not considered early enough. 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. [68] He also explicitly described the sexual details of his marriage on Internet chat rooms, giving information sufficient for those who knew them to recognize the couple. Robert Philip Hanssen is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, who became infamous as a notorious double agent of the intelligence services of Soviet Union and later Russia. The couple's relationship was fraught, and Darla, who had a master's degree in Education and taught children with learning disabilities, supported herself. Hanssen was recalled yet again to Washington, D.C., in 1987. Director Tenet and I have briefed the intelligence committees of Congress because of the clear national security implications. Robert Hanssen, FBI Agent Who Became a Soviet Mole. When O'Neill could briefly obtain Hanssen's PDA and have agents download and decode its encrypted contents, the FBI had decisive evidence. https://www.thoughtco.com/robert-hanssen-4587832 (accessed January 18, 2023). His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. That could leave Bonnie Hanssen, who works part time at the Catholic girls' school that her youngest child attends, in dire straits. [35] Three years later, convicted FBI mole Earl Edwin Pitts told the FBI that he suspected Hanssen due to the Mislock incident. Hanssen's jailers allowed him to watch this movie, but he was so angered by it that he turned it off. A TV movie called Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story was released in 2002. For more than a decade, Hansen had been luring sex workers into his vehicle or home with the promise of an easy transaction. He was arrested while in the process of using a dead drop to clandestinely provide numerous classified documents to his Russian handler. He also independently disclosed the identity of two KGB officials who, first compromised by Aldrich Ames, had been recruited by the U.S. Government to serve as agents in place at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. On May 10, 2002, he was given sentence of fifteen life terms without a chance of parole. He enrolled in dental school at Northwestern University[11] but switched his focus to business after three years. It wasnt money, thats for sure, she said, noting that the family lived in a modest home with three mortgages and drove older-model cars as they scrimped to send their children to private Catholic schools. For more information:- Press Release - Veteran FBI Agent Arrested and Charged with Espionage- Affidavit- Statement ofFBI Director Louis J. Freeh on the Arrestof FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen (see below), Statement of FBI Director Louis J. Freeh On the Arrestof FBI Special Agent Robert Philip Hanssen, For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 20, 2001Washington D.C.FBI National Press Office. He was the single most devastating mole in US history, and compromised more CIA assets than anyone in history, until Robert Hanssen that is. On February 18, 2001, he was arrested by the FBI when he was keeping a waste bag full of classified information in a pre-planned place from where his Russian handler could collect it. December 2000 - The FBI begins surveillance of Hanssen. Heres a look at the life of convicted spy Robert Hanssen. No one knew Hansen was abducting some of these women and killing them for sport. Their actions represent counterintelligence at its very best and under the most difficult and sensitive of circumstances. Bonnie Hanssens first public statements on the case reveal both her anxiety over her husbands actions and her sense of relief over the fact that she and her six children will retain an estimated $39,000 a year from his government pension. January 12, 2001 - Hanssen is reassigned from counterintelligence to an obscure office at FBI headquarters. His exposure explained many of the asset losses U.S. intelligence suffered during the 1980s, including the arrest and execution of Martynov and Motorin. He established contact with the SVR (the successor to the Soviet-era KGB) during the autumn of 1999. The FBI planned to use it for eavesdropping but never did for fear of being caught. Please be aware how deeply Mrs. Hanssen regrets the damage that her husband, Robert Hanssen, has caused to our country and to their family, the statement said. As alleged, he did so using a variety of sophisticated means of communication, encryption, and dead drops. He wrote to them anonymously. On October 1, 1985, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter to the KGB offering his services and asking for $100,000 in cash, equivalent to $251,949 in 2021. This is particularly timely as we move to the next generation of automation to support the FBIs information infrastructure. Hansen was convicted of just four of the murders in a deal that spared him . ThoughtCo. In November 1998, they had a man with a foreign accent come to Kelley's door, warn him that the FBI knew he was a spy, and tell him to show up at a Metro station the next day to escape. But Thursday, Bonnie Hanssen issued a statement through her attorney revealing the torment that the case has caused. Friends of Hanssen later came forward and told journalists that Hanssen had exhibited eccentric behavior, which included an obsession with pornography. After the transfer, while on a business visit back to Washington, D.C., he resumed his espionage career. At the Heights, McPherson told the family that they would not have to worry. All Rights Reserved. By 1998, using FBI criminal profiling techniques, the pursuers suspected an innocent man: Brian Kelley, a CIA operative involved in the Bloch investigation. The 2007 documentary Superspy: The Man Who Betrayed the West describes the hunt to trap Hanssen. Hanssen was serving as a detailee to the Office of Foreign Missions at the Department of State at the time suspicions around him arose. At one point Hanssen spoke to a Russian agent over a pay phone, but they generally relied on placing signals in public places. This wedded bliss was short-lived, however. Our hearts go out to them. Desk: FBI and CIA Counterintelligence As Seen From My Cubicle Dog Ear Publishing 2010, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy, Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America, "USA v. Robert Philip Hanssen: Affidavit in Support of Criminal Complaint, Arrest Warrant and Search Warrant", "Federal Bureau of Prisons Inmate Locator", "A Review of FBI Security Programs (Webster Report)", "A Review of the FBI's Performance in Deterring, Detecting, and Investigating the Espionage Activities of Robert Philip Hanssen", Thompson Statement Regarding Hanssen Guilty Plea, "Spy's Wife Speaks, After Taking a Lie Test", "Riddle Resolved: Who Dimed Out American Traitor and Super-Spy, Robert Hanssen? In January 2001, Hanssen was given an office and an assistant, Eric O'Neill, who, in reality, was a young FBI surveillance specialist who had been assigned to watch Hanssen. ", "Eric O'Neill and Billy Ray Discuss 'Breach', "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees: Uproar Over CIA Operative; Iraq Weapons Hunt: Congress to be Briefed", "FBI Spy Robert Hanssen Gets Life Sentence", "Faculty and Staff Directory for Oakcrest School for Girls", Ex-stripper describes her time with accused spy, "MUGSHOTS: ROBERT HANSSEN HANSSEN AND THE KGB", "Smithsonian Channel: It's Brighter Here", FBI application for arrest warrant for Hanssen, "The Movie Breach and Hollywood's Take on Espionage; Peter interviews Eric O'Neill, the FBI investigator who went undercover as Robert Hanssen's clerk during the final months before Hanssen was arrested for espionage", "This FBI Agent Sold Secrets to the KGB for Years", "Curator's Corner: Robert Hanssen - An Inside View with Eric O'Neill", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Hanssen&oldid=1134276656, Ramon Garcia, Jim Baker, G. Robertson, Graysuit, "B", This page was last edited on 17 January 2023, at 21:42. He could sit in his office and shut the door. Hanssen, a former counterintelligence supervisor for the FBI, pleaded guilty last week to 15 espionage-related charges and admitted that he had sold the Russians thousands of pages of national security secrets in exchange for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds. His application in the National Security Agency, for the post of a cryptographer, was rejected due to budget restrictions. [54], With the representation of Washington lawyer Plato Cacheris, Hanssen negotiated a plea bargain that enabled him to avoid the death penalty in exchange for cooperating with authorities. O'Neill ascertained that Hanssen was using a Palm III PDA to store his information. FBI leadership decided Hanssen needed to be removed from his temporary position and brought back to FBI Headquarters. His job was to help assemble a database of foreign officials posted in New York who, while posing as diplomats, were actually intelligence officers spying on the United States. Authorities say Hanssen was driven by greed, but Brookner rejected that assertion. Hanssen met Bernadette "Bonnie" Wauck, a staunch Roman Catholic, while attending dental school at Northwestern. [7][8] On May 10, 2002, Hanssen was sentenced to 15 consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Finding nothing, Hanssen decided to resume his spy career after eight years without contact with the Russians. Interestingly, Hansen got married twice. The FBI and CIA formed a joint mole-hunting team in 1994 to find the suspected second intelligence leak. 2. I intend to act swiftly on his recommendations. 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. After working in the FBI division that developed secret listening devices, Hanssen was again placed in a position to track Russian agents operating in the United States. He continued to perform incriminating searches of FBI files for his name and address. In court proceedings the government stated that Hanssen had been paid more than $1.4 million during his spying career, most of which he never actually received, as it was held for him in a Russian bank. He relayed secret information to Russia regarding US intelligence and counterintelligence operations. When he pleaded guilty and received a 461-year prison sentence in 1984, Darla divorced him. In the last letter he wrote to the Russians, which was found by the FBI when he was arrested, Hanssen said that he had been promoted to a "do-nothing job outside of regular access to information," and that, "Something has aroused the sleeping tiger". Is sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. The FBI believed his story, and Hanssen was merely given a warning. 2023 Cable News Network. He was, after all, a trained counterintelligence specialist. Hanssen is mentioned in the seventh episode of The History Channel series America's Book of Secrets, as well as in the fifth episode of Netflix series Spycraft. In 1978, Hanssen was transferred to the FBI office in New York City and was assigned to a counterintelligence post. The couple married in 1968, and Hanssen converted from Lutheranism to his wife's Catholicism. Therefore, after he was given a 461-year sentence for his crimes, she chose to divorce him. Robert Hanssen was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a Lutheran family who lived in the Norwood Park neighborhood. When they failed to appear, the Justice Department announced the arrest on February 20. [6] To avoid the death penalty, Hanssen pleaded guilty to 14 counts of espionage and one of conspiracy to commit espionage. He never indicated any political or ideological motive for his actions, telling the FBI after he was caught that his only motivation was financial. These reports went nowhere, however (via the New York Daily News). On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested at a park in northern Virginia after he had placed a package at a dead drop location. As soon as they let their guard down, Hansen would attack, brutally sexually assaulting them before finally killing them (per Anchorage Daily News). Robert Hansen was actually married twice. By February 2001, about 300 personnel were working the investigation and monitoring Hanssen. During the early 1990s, KGB veterans began to approach western intelligence agencies and provide information. Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist. Although Hanssen was unaware of it, Ames had already exposed all three agents earlier that year. Since he held key counterintelligence positions, he had authorized access to classified information. Hansen would frequent the strip clubs in the area. Polyakov was carefully watched by the Russians from that point on, and was eventually arrested as a spy and executed in 1988. In this assignment, however, Hanssen did continue to have access to sensitive FBI information as he remained assigned to the FBIs National Security Division and routinely dealt with sensitive and classified matters. A feature film called Breach was released in 2007. FBI agents remove evidence from Robert Hanssen's home in Vienna, Virginia on February 20, 2001. . [22] Yuzhin had returned to Moscow in 1982 and had been subject to an intensive investigation by the KGB there due to having lost a concealed camera in the Soviet consulate in San Francisco, but he was not arrested until being exposed by Ames and Hanssen. On July 6, 2001, he was tried in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on fifteen counts for his espionage. The FBI's codename for the suspected spy was "Graysuit". In short, the trusted insider betrayed his trust without detection. The most significant information that he shared was about Dmitri Polyakov, who while serving the Soviet Army as a General was spying for Americas CIA. 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. He married Bernadette Wauck in 1968 and, influenced by his devout Catholic wife, he converted to Catholicism. Hanssen reportedly lavished cash and gifts on a Washington stripper whom he befriended. [14] The next year, Hanssen was transferred to counterintelligence and given the task of compiling a database of Soviet intelligence for the FBI. The money Hansen generated from his bakery went elsewhere. A Warner Bros. 1999 - Resumes spying, this time for the Russian Intelligence agency. In January 1976, he left the police department to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[4]. As a devout Catholic, Bonnie Hanssen feels that he needs time [in prison] to pray for forgiveness and be redeemed in some way, the wifes attorney, Janine Brookner, said in an interview. Their goal was to catch Hanssen red handed in espionage. The FBI could not produce any good evidence, and as a result, Bloch was never charged with a crime, although the State Department later terminated his employment and denied his pension. The complaint, however, does not allege any compromises by him at the State Department. [12] Hanssen received an MBA in accounting and information systems in 1971 and took a job with an accounting firm. Brookner said that the only time Bonnie Hanssen harbored any suspicions about her husbands activities came around 1979 or 1980, when they lived in Scarsdale, N.Y. She walked in on him and he covered up some papers, so she got suspicious, Brookner said. There he served as an investigator of internal affairs with specialisation in forensic accounting. Under the plea agreement, Hanssen is obligated to return the $1.4 million in spying proceeds to the government, but Brookner said she doubts that will ever happen. Literally, Hanssens colleagues and coworkers at the FBI conducted this investigation and did so quietly, securely and without hesitation. They paid $7 million to KGB agent Alexandr Shcherbakov[43] who had access to a file on "B". Hanssen gave them the name of a Russian general, Dimitri Polyakov, who had been providing information to the Americans. Wanting to get a fresh start, the newlywed couple migrated to Alaska in 1967 (per the New YorkDaily News). Hanssen claimed he was trying to connect a color printer to his computer but needed the password cracker to bypass the administrative password. In 1999, the FBI even interrogated Kelley, his ex-wife, two sisters, and three children. 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Encryption, and was assigned to a counterintelligence post 2023 ). [ 4 ] FBI begins surveillance of later. I dont think there was anybody more shocked by all this, Brookner said chance!
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