Former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, sentenced to life for spying for Russia, dies in his cell
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Robert Philip Hanssen was sworn to uphold the law and protect the nation as an FBI special agent and ended up as into the most damaging spy in agency history.
Robert Hanssen's name went down in history as the former FBI agent who was one of America's most damaging spies, selling highly classified material to the Soviet Union and then Russia, for which he was serving a life sentence in the federal penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, until this Monday he was found dead.
Hanssen, 79, was found on the floor, unresponsive, and staff performed resuscitation techniques, to no avail, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Kristie Breshears said.
“Staff requested emergency medical services and life-saving efforts continued,” Breshears said. “The inmate was later pronounced dead by outside emergency medical personnel”.
Hanssen appears to have died of natural causes, according to two sources briefed on the matter.
BREAKING: Robert Hanssen, a top FBI agent who began spying for Moscow, betraying many American spies in Russia, has died at the age of 79. American spies exposed by Hanssen were shot in the head. He is remembered as the most destructive double agent in modern American history. A… pic.twitter.com/DRqTn0YDxq
June 5, 2023 — Simon Ateba (@simonateba) June 5,
Three years after being hired by the FBI, Hanssen became close to the Soviets and began spying in 1979 for the KGB and its successor, the SVR. He stopped a few years later after his wife confronted him.
He resumed espionage in 1985, selling thousands of classified documents compromising human and technical sources and counterintelligence investigations in exchange for more than $1.4 million. dollars in cash, diamonds and deposits in foreign banks. Using the alias "Ramón García", he passed information to spy agencies using encrypted communications and deadlocks, without ever meeting a Russian handler in person.
When he was arrested in February 2001, the man had been spying for the Russians for more than 20 years, not only passing inside information to the FBI but also to the CIA and the State Department.
Despite this, before his judgment , he negotiated to recognize fifteen crimes of espionage and hand over everything he knew about the Russians, including agents, to receive a life sentence without the possibility of parole that, on May 10, 2002, was imposed by the court in charge of judging him.