1 of 5 Hanssen Badge and Enterprise Card Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC Hanssen Badge and Enterprise Card Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC
Robert Hanssen was some of the pernicious spies within the historical past of the FBI, the US Federal Police. The previous agent, who died in jail, spent practically 20 years leaking confidential info to Moscow a betrayal that the company says has value lives. It took 300 brokers to lastly catch him. Two of them, who performed a central position within the plan, inform the BBC how they did it.
In December 2000, FBI agent Richard Garcia acquired a curious go to from a colleague in command of Russiarelated operations.
“He mentioned, ‘Are you aware a man named Robert Hanssen?’” Garcia remembers. “I mentioned no’.”
“Good. Since you’ll be proper there.”
A number of months later the entire nation would know too, thanks partly to Garcia’s work as an spy. Hanssen’s arrest in February 2001 shook the intelligence companies and the extent of his double life made entrance pages.
Final Monday (6/5), greater than twenty years later, authorities introduced that he was discovered useless in his cell on the most safety jail in Colorado, United States, the place he was serving a life sentence. He was 79 years outdated and the demise is believed to be of pure causes.
Garcia, now 70 and a retired FBI worker, responded succinctly to the information. “It’s too late,” he mentioned.
Lethal acts of treason
Hanssen studied Russian in school and commenced working for the FBI in 1976. Inside a decade, he betrayed the company: Starting in 1985, Hanssen started working as a harmful informant throughout the US authorities, promoting topsecret paperwork to the then Soviet Union after which to Russia, thereby jeopardizing the identities of the infiltrated spies.
In keeping with the 100page report detailing his crimes, Hanssen’s betrayal led to the arrest of three American sources and the execution of two others.
Among the many categorised paperwork leaked by Hanssen was a US intelligence evaluation of Soviet makes an attempt to collect information on US nuclear applications.
Hanssen handed info to the KGB, the Soviet Union’s secret service, and later to the SVR, Russia’s overseas intelligence service.
2 of 5 Hanssen in highschool, 1962 and after (undated picture) Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC Hanssen in highschool, 1962 and after (undated picture) Photograph: GETTY IMAGES /through BBC
In alternate, the Russians paid Hanssen $1.4 million — $600,000 in money and diamonds and $800,000 in a checking account, the US mentioned.
Due to his oldfashioned espionage strategies, Hanssen went unnoticed for thus lengthy. He used useless drops, a technique of transmitting info by bodily hiding one thing—like a bundle in a bush or behind a rubbish can—so a contact might decide it up. He selected inconspicuous places within the Virginia suburbs round Washington to ship the stolen intelligence information.
His contacts in Moscow didn’t know his identification. He glided by the pseudonym “Ramon Garcia,” unrelated to Robert Garcia, who believes coincidence might have upset Hanssen once they first met.
Its actions continued lengthy after the autumn of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Till his arrest, he tried to speak with the Russians.
However a sequence of intelligence discoveries introduced the FBI and the US intelligence equipment on his heels.
Identification of the informant
US intelligence officers had suspected they had been a spy because the Nineteen Nineties, however it took them a couple of years to trace down Hanssen.
Till a Russian informant working for the US acquired entry to a Russian file on her husband in Virginia. Inside, American intelligence brokers found a recording of a telephone dialog Hanssen had together with his contacts, in addition to fingerprints on rubbish luggage used for useless waste.
By November 2000, they knew who he was. However they needed to show it.
The FBI devised a plan to observe Hanssen by transferring him from the State Division the place he labored and setting him up in a bogus job with the FBI the place brokers might monitor him.
3 of 5 Press crowds outdoors the Virginia Courthouse in 2001 Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC Press crowds outdoors the Virginia Courthouse in 2001 Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC
“We needed to collect sufficient proof to convict him, and the final word aim was to catch him within the act,” recalled Debra Evans Smith, former deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, in a briefing on the FBI case.
That is the place Garcia got here in.
On December 8, 2000, the FBI’s Russia chief appeared to temporary him on the plan to seize Hanssen.
Garcia, a veteran spy, could be Hanssen’s fictional boss, a extra bureaucratic boss.
“He hated me, let’s simply say,” Garcia remembers. “I needed to principally tie it collectively with out it getting too ridiculous.”
Few FBI workers knew there was a spy amongst them.
A vital “Palm Pilot”
Garcia recruited Eric O’Neill, a 26yearold spy with hacking expertise, as Hanssen’s administrative assistant.
“This was some of the vital occasions of my life, going undercover at a comparatively younger age and taking over probably the most damaging spy in US historical past,” O’Neill tells the BBC.
Over the subsequent few weeks, the 2 grew to become nearer even when one was secretly investigating the opposite. At one level, O’Neill even accompanied the Hanssen household to church.
O’Neill describes his goal as a narcissist with an enormous ego. “He needed to be a mentor. He needed to cross on all his information to somebody.”
4 of 5 Illustration of Hanssen (left) in considered one of his first courtroom appearances Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC Illustration of Hanssen (left) in considered one of his first courtroom appearances Photograph: GETTY IMAGES/through BBC
Throughout the investigation, Garcia took Hanssen (whom he described as a “gun freak”) to a taking pictures vary whereas brokers carried out searches, together with his automotive, the place they discovered confidential paperwork.
In the future he took Hanssen to the taking pictures vary whereas O’Neill frantically copied content material from his Palm Pilot a precursor to the BlackBerry and smartphones.
O’Neill says he acquired the gadget in place simply in time, simply earlier than Hanssen acquired again.
It seems like a scene from a Hollywood film, and it’s the story was tailored right into a spy thriller known as Breaking Belief (2007) starring Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper and Laura Linney.
arrest and conviction
In keeping with the FBI, as of February 2001, 300 brokers had been engaged on the case.
They waited for Hanssen to aim one other useless drop, and finally he did.
Hanssen was arrested in Foxstone Park, Virginia, in February 2001 on costs of espionage. He pleaded responsible to fifteen counts and was sentenced to life in jail with out chance of parole.
5 of 5 Package deal Hanssen left for his Russian contacts in 2001 Photograph: FBI/through BBC Package deal Hanssen left for his Russian contacts in 2001 Photograph: FBI/through BBC
ThenFBI Director Louis Freeh known as Hanssen’s betrayal “probably the most treacherous act conceivable towards a rustic ruled by the rule of regulation.”
The case strained relations with America’s Chilly Battle rivals, and President George W. Bush expelled a number of Russian diplomats.
Hanssen was despatched to jail in Florence, Colorado, the place he remained for greater than twenty years till he died this week.
The historic case modified the lives of everybody concerned.
O’Neill wrote a e book on the case, Grey Day, and is now a “spy talker/spy cat
cher,” in response to his web site.
He tried unsuccessfully for years to interview Hanssen for the e book. After hiding in a small workplace with Hanssen for weeks within the early 2000s, he had no entry to it. Correctional officers refused to let him spend a second within the spy’s cell.
Upon studying that Hanssen had died, O’Neill regretted not pushing more durable to talk to him. “I’d have requested him: Why did you do this?”
Garcia has his idea as to why Hanssen betrayed his nation: ego. “He felt like he was God and will management the US and Russia.”
He calls Hanssen probably the most harmful spy in US historical past.
“For the harm he triggered to the US and Russia, for the individuals who died on account of the data he shared. For doing this for thus lengthy. It was superb that it occurred that method.”