American spy who fed secrets and techniques to Russia dies in jail
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former FBI agent who took greater than £1.1 million in money and diamonds to commerce secrets and techniques with Russia has died in jail.
Robert Hanssen, 79, was discovered unresponsive in his cell at a federal jail in Colorado on Monday and later pronounced lifeless, officers stated.
He had been serving a sentence of life in jail with out chance of parole since 2002, after pleading responsible to fifteen counts of espionage and different fees.
Hanssen had joined the FBI in 1976 and started promoting labeled data to the Soviet Union in 1985.
By the time of his arrest in 2001, he had acquired over £1.1 million in money, financial institution funds and diamonds in change for compromising quite a few human sources, intelligence methods and labeled US paperwork.
Using the alias Ramon Garcia, he handed some 6,000 paperwork and 26 laptop disks to his handlers, authorities stated.
Officials additionally consider he tipped off Moscow to a secret tunnel the Americans constructed beneath the Soviet Embassy in Washington for eavesdropping.
FBI investigators had labored for years to establish the spy inside their ranks however didn’t arrest Hanssen till February 2001. Some 300 personnel had labored on the investigation, the FBI stated.
An arrest workforce took Hanssen into custody after catching him making a “dead drop” of labeled supplies in a park in suburban Virginia, in accordance with the intelligence company.
Hanssen had been serving his life sentence in a most safety facility in Colorado.
The Bureau of Prisons didn’t present a explanation for loss of life.