[9] He is of Norwegian descent. Still, he was not identified as a spy. The FBI planned to use it for eavesdropping but never did for fear of being caught. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. He often steered conversations to talk of religion and his very conservative values, which were aligned with the very conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Hanssen sold thousands of classified documents to the KGB that detailed U.S. strategies in the event of nuclear war, developments in military weapons technologies, and aspects of the U.S. counterintelligence program. 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. After divorcing Robert, Darla was faced with a choice. Hanssen would later claim that his goal was simply to make some extra money, as living in New York City was putting a financial squeeze on his growing family. , . His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history." Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. The FBI and CIA formed a joint mole-hunting team in 1994 to find the suspected second intelligence leak. Robert was born in 1939 in Iowa to Danish immigrants Christian and Edna Hansen. Hanssen warned the KGB that Bloch was being investigated, causing the KGB to end contact with him abruptly. 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. Further, the complaint alleges that Hanssen, using his training and experience to protect himself from discovery by the FBI, never met face-to-face with his Russian handlers, never revealed to them his true identity or where he worked, constantly checked FBI records for signs he and the drop sites he was using were being investigated, refused any foreign travel to meet with the Russians, and even declined to accept any trade craft. Hanssen never displayed outward signs that he was receiving large amounts of unexplained cash. These reports went nowhere, however (via the New York Daily News). 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. Hansen was first married in his native Iowa when he was in his early 20s (via The Cinemaholic). Hanssen received payments of $1.4 million in cash and diamonds from the information he gave the Soviet Union and Russia. Robert Hansen was actually married twice. Hanssen also revealed a multimillion-dollar eavesdropping tunnel built by the FBI under the Soviet Embassy. McNamara, Robert. With two children already out of school, the pension money will help Bonnie Hanssen support two children who are in college and two more still in high school, Brookner said. He met his second wife, Darla, shortly after his parole. In 1967, the couple moved to Anchorage, Alaska, and had two children. In May 2002, Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison. [27][28] When the Soviets began construction on a new embassy during 1977, the FBI dug a tunnel beneath their decoding room. The Hanssens were associated with the Catholic fraternal order Opus Dei. July 6, 2001 - Pleads guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for the government not seeking the death penalty. While it did not contain Hanssen's name, among the information was an audiotape of a July 21, 1986, conversation between "B" and KGB agent Aleksander Fefelov. Because of these coordinated efforts, the FBI was able to secure original Russian documentation of an American spy who appeared to the FBI to be Hanssen a premise that was soon to be confirmed when Hanssen was identified by the FBI as having clandestinely communicated with Russian intelligence officers. A reader replied to the blog, claiming to have been roommates with Hansen's daughter in the early 1990s, but this has yet to be substantiated. What we wanted to do was get enough evidence to convict him, and the ultimate aim was to catch him in the act, said Debra Evans Smith, a former deputy assistant director of the Counterintelligence Division. [6] 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? His assistant, Eric ONeill, was tasked with keeping investigators apprised of Hanssens movements. He never indicated any political or ideological motive for his actions, telling the FBI after he was caught that his only motivation was financial. She is also challenging some of her husbands credit card bills. He married Bernadette Wauck in 1968 and, influenced by his devout Catholic wife, he converted to Catholicism. He was charged with selling U.S. intelligence documents to the Soviet Union and subsequently Russia for more than $1.4 million in cash and diamonds over 22 years. The couple went on to have two children. Polyakov was carefully watched by the Russians from that point on, and was eventually arrested as a spy and executed in 1988. Hanssen's story is the subject of the 2021 documentary A Spy in the FBI. Though both Hansen and his wife earned respectable incomes, it would be revealed that it was Darla who was supporting the household. 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. Born In: Chicago, Illinois, United States. After confirmation by the FBI CART Unit, Sullivan filed a report with the Office of Professional Responsibility requesting the further investigation of Hanssen's attempted hack. [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. With two children already out of school, the pension money will help Bonnie Hanssen support two children who are in college and two more still in high school, Brookner said. The actions alleged date back as far as 1985 and, with the possible exception of several years in the 1990s, continued until his arrest on Sunday. He was eventually placed on administrative leave, where he remained falsely accused until after Hanssen was arrested. The complaint alleges that Hanssen conspired to and did commit espionage for Russia and the former Soviet Union. Hanssen reportedly lavished cash and gifts on a Washington stripper whom he befriended. His Russian contacts and Hanssen were highly trained in espionage techniques and were able to work together without ever meeting. They created a list of all agents known to have access to cases that were compromised. Yet some investigators believed anger about how his father treated him as a child triggered a need to rebel against authority. All denied everything. [46][47][48], The FBI surveilled Hanssen and soon discovered he was again in contact with the Russians. Interestingly, after being relocated to Washington in 1987, he was delegated with a specific probe which actually meant searching for himself but he tactfully managed it. I am shamed by it," Hanssen told U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton. But money is. Robert Hanssen moments after being arrested. Darla earned a living for the household as well, teaching children with disabilities. Hansen would force some of these women into the small plane that he owned and fly them to a remote location in the Alaskan wilderness. Bonnie had previously told her brother that Hanssen once talked about retiring in Poland, then part of the Eastern Bloc. 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. 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. He enrolled in dental school at Northwestern University[11] but switched his focus to business after three years. [26], Later that year, Hanssen gave extensive information about American planning for measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), a general term for intelligence collected by a variety of electronic means, such as radar, spy satellites, and signal intercepts. He compromised information about Americas plan of forming Measurement and Signature Intelligence, its bugging plan over the Soviets by digging a tunnel under the decoding room of the Soviets new embassy and data on double agents of the US. Hanssen's children returned to school within days of his arrest, family and friends said, to maintain their routines. Their actions represent counterintelligence at its very best and under the most difficult and sensitive of circumstances. At least two movies have been made about Hanssen. Robert Hansen. For a time he planned to become a dentist, but eventually wound up obtaining an MBA and becoming an accountant. The criminal conduct alleged represents the most traitorous actions imaginable against a country governed by the Rule of Law. Hanssen's three sons attended The Heights School in Potomac, Maryland, an all-boys preparatory school. She sold their house and bakery in Alaska and shifted closer to her family in Arkansas after the children were getting bullied massively at their school. In 1995 he was designated as a liaison between the Office of Foreign Missions of the Department of State and the FBI. While the risk that an employee of the United States Government will betray his country can never be eliminated, there must be more that the FBI can do to protect itself from such an occurrence. 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. On a 2017blog post, Hale revealed that he had attempted to contact Hansen's now adult children, but was unsuccessful. [4] He was spying at the same time as Aldrich Ames in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hanssen's jailers allowed him to watch this movie, but he was so angered by it that he turned it off. May 31, 2001 - Pleads not guilty to all charges. 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. After around five years he joined the FBI in January 1976. After the transfer, while on a business visit back to Washington, D.C., he resumed his espionage career. Instead, the 57-year-old defendant will be sentenced to life in prison without parole if he honors his pledge to tell the government all the secrets behind his two-decade career as a Russian spy. Hanssen was recalled yet again to Washington, D.C., in 1987. In 1999, the FBI even interrogated Kelley, his ex-wife, two sisters, and three children. Hanssen, carrying a package of documents, identified himself by his Soviet code name, "Ramon Garcia", and described himself as a "disaffected FBI agent" who was offering his services as a spy. [25] That same year, Hanssen, according to a government report, committed a "serious security breach" by revealing secret information to a Soviet defector during a debriefing. The Russian officer, who evidently did not recognize the code name, drove away. Eric Michael O'Neill is an American former FBI counter-terrorism and counterintelligence operative. children: Greg Hanssen, Jane Hanssen, John Hanssen, Lisa Hanssen, Mark Hanssen, Sue Hanssen Born Country: United States Spies American Men City: Chicago, Illinois Notable Alumni: Knox College (Illinois) U.S. State: Illinois More Facts Recommended Lists: American People Kellogg School Of Management Male Spies American Spies Aries Men It was not a very demanding job, said Sullivan. The FBI believed his story, and Hanssen was merely given a warning. "[3] Hanssen is currently serving 15 consecutive life sentences without parole at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado. 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 also paid visits to various sex workers, two of whom filed complaints to the police about Hansen and his strange and terrifying behaviors. [5] His mother was Edna Margret Petersen. Troubled by the incident, Bonnie Hanssen made her husband speak with a Catholic priest, who directed him to contribute money to Mother Teresa, the Catholic nun who ran a Calcutta charitable organization, as a form of penance, Brookner said. What makes Hansen seem even more grisly than other serial killers was the way that many of his victims were murdered. Through our cooperative efforts, the FBI and CIA were able to learn the true identity of Ramon and the FBI was able to conduct a solid investigation. Hanssen was finally discovered when a former KGB agent contacted American intelligence agents. The failure of the Bloch investigation and the FBI's investigation of how the KGB learned that they were investigating Bloch caused the mole hunt that eventually resulted in the arrest of Hanssen. McNamara, Robert. 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 CIA and FBI searched his house, tapped his telephone, and surveilled him, following him and his family everywhere. "I have opened the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and children. He will report directly to the Attorney General and me and we will share his report with the National Security Council and Congress. Yet Brookner said Bonnie Hanssen has no intention of divorcing her husband. CNN Sans & 2016 Cable News Network. She went with Hanssen on visits to Hong Kong and the FBI training facility in Quantico, Virginia. [37], During the same period, Hanssen searched the FBI's internal computer case record to see if he was being investigated. McNamara, Robert. [60] He refused to use the dead drop sites that his handler, Victor Cherkashin, suggested and instead chose his own. On February 18, 2001, Hanssen was arrested at a park in northern Virginia after he had placed a package at a dead drop location. After Ames's arrest in 1994, some of these intelligence breaches remained unsolved. [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. Since he held key counterintelligence positions, he had authorized access to classified information. . Gallagher also told Hanssen that then-Director Louis Freeh had approved a two-year extension on his service and a promotion to the Senior Executive Service. But the government could not prove he had lied, and wishing to avoid a public trial, the government chose not to void his plea agreement. In his office, Hanssen had full access to the FBIs Automated Case Support (ACS) system and the State Departments computer systems. In 1991, he discontinued selling classified information to KGB after the collapse of Soviet Union and also probably because the FBI was on the lookout for a probable defector. The FBI also obtains the complete original KGB dossier on Hanssen. He once said in a letter to the KGB that it should emulate the management style of Mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daleya comment that easily could have led an investigator to look at people from Chicago. [44] FBI agent Michael Waguespack thought the voice was familiar, but could not remember who it was. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. The couple, however, did not have a great relationship. After being imprisoned, Hanssen claimed he periodically admitted his espionage to priests in confession. Mislock has since theorized that Hanssen probably went onto his computer to see if his superiors were investigating him for espionage and invented the document story to cover his tracks. The Russian had obtained Hanssen's KGB file. 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. To closely oversee his activities, the FBI relocated him in its headquarters in January 2001. At one point Hanssen spoke to a Russian agent over a pay phone, but they generally relied on placing signals in public places. His book written about this experience, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America's First Cyber Spy, was published in spring 2019. 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. 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