FBI agent Robert Hanssen gave highly confidential information to the Soviets for almost 20 years. The US then devised a complex plan to stop him.
A coworker in charge of the Russia desk paid FBI agent Richard Garcia a curious visit in December 2000.
"Do you know a guy named Robert Hanssen?" he asked, Mr. Garcia recalled. "I answered, "No. " .
"Good," the official replied. given that you're about to. " .
Soon after, the entire nation would do so, in part because of Mr. Garcia's covert work.
According to the FBI's version of events, Robert Hanssen was the most detrimental spy in the organization's history. The extent of his Cold War-era betrayals exploded onto the front pages after his arrest in February 2001, shocking the intelligence community. .
In his cell at the maximum-security facility where he was serving a life sentence, Hanssen passed away on Monday of this week, more than 20 years after his arrest. He was 79.
The news was met with a terse response from Mr. Garcia, a 70-year-old retired FBI agent. He remarked that Hanssen's work had taken lives, adding, "Good riddance.".
Hanssen started working for the FBI in 1976 after completing a Russian course in college. Within ten years, he was betraying the bureau. Hanssen began working as a destructive mole for the US government in 1985, selling top-secret papers to the USSR and Russia while compromising the identities of covert operatives. .
Hanssen's espionage led to the arrest and imprisonment of three US sources, as well as the execution of two more, according to the 100-page affidavit detailing his crimes.
A US intelligence assessment of Soviet efforts to gather information on American nuclear programs was one of the top-secret documents that Hanssen provided. The KGB and later its post-Soviet successor, the SVR, received information from Hanssen.
The Russians gave Hanssen $1.4 million in exchange for his lies; $600,000 of that was given to him in cash and diamonds, and the remaining $800,000 was deposited into a bank account.
Because of his traditional espionage techniques, Hanssen was able to remain undetected for so long. He used the tactic of "dead drops," which involves physically burying items for his handlers to find. To deliver the stolen intelligence, he picked unremarkable locations throughout the suburbs of Virginia near Washington.
His handlers in Moscow had no idea who he was. He used the alias "Ramon Garcia," but he was unrelated to Robert Garcia, who speculated that Hanssen might have found the coincidence irritating once they had met.
Long after the USSR collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down, he kept up his activities. Up until the moment of his arrest, he was trying to talk to the Russians.
But a string of intelligence successes eventually put the FBI and the US intelligence community on his trail. .
It took a few years to identify Hanssen, despite US intelligence officials having suspicions about a spy in their midst since the 1990s.
Then, a Russian agent for the US managed to get his hands on the Russian dossier regarding their man in Virginia. Inside, US intelligence officials found Hanssen's handlers' phone call on tape, along with his fingerprints on garbage bags used for dead drops. .
They had their man by November 2000. Nevertheless, they were now required to provide evidence.
The FBI devised a strategy to put Hanssen under surveillance that involved transferring him from the State Department where he was employed and creating a phony position at the Bureau where agents could observe him.
Debra Evans Smith, a former deputy assistant director of the Counterintelligence Division, recalled in an FBI summary of the case, "What we wanted to do was get enough evidence to convict him, and the ultimate aim was to catch him in the act.".
Mr. Garcia stepped in at that point.
The section chief for the FBI's Russia desk dropped by on December 8 to inform him of Hanssen's deception.
Mr. Garcia, a skilled undercover agent, was to serve as Hanssen's fictitious superior and a very bureaucratic boss.
Let's just say that he despised me, according to Mr. Garcia. "I basically had to slow him down to keep it from getting ridiculous. " .
Few FBI employees were aware that there was a spy among them.
To pose as Hanssen's administrative assistant, Mr. Garcia hired Eric O'Neill, a 26-year-old undercover agent with hacking experience.
Going undercover at a young age and facing off against the most destructive spy in US history was one of the biggest moments of my life, Mr. O'Neill told the BBC. .
While one was secretly looking into the other, the two spent the following two weeks getting to know one another very well. At one point, Mr. O'Neill even went to church with the Hanssen family. .
The target-turned-boss of Mr. O'Neill was described as a narcissist with a huge ego. .
He wished to act as a mentor. He desired to share all of his knowledge with someone, according to Mr. O'Neill.
Throughout the investigation, Mr. Garcia would drive Mr. Hanssen, who he described as a "gun nut," to a shooting range while agents searched his home and his car, where they found top-secret documents.
On one occasion, Mr. Garcia enticed Hanssen from his office to a shooting range while Mr. O'Neill hurriedly copied information from his Palm Pilot, a forerunner to BlackBerrys and smartphones. .
Mr. O'Neill claimed that he replaced the device just in time for Mr. Hanssen to make his entrance.
If this sounds like a plot from a Hollywood film, that's because it is; Mr. O'Neill's tale was turned into the 2007 espionage thriller "Breach," which starred Ryan Phillippe, Chris Cooper, and Laura Linney.
The FBI reported that 300 agents were occupied with the case by February 2001.
They waited for Hanssen to make another dead drop attempt, and eventually he did.
In Virginia's Foxstone Park, Hanssen was detained in February 2001 and accused of spying. He was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole after entering a guilty plea to 15 counts.
Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI, referred to Hanssen's treachery as "the most traitorous actions imaginable against a country governed by the rule of law.".
President George W. Bush expelled numerous Russian diplomats as a result of the case, which strained ties with its Cold War rival. .
Hanssen was committed to the Florence, Colorado, prison, where he served more than two decades before passing away this week.
Each participant's life was altered by the historic case. .
After writing the book Gray Day about the incident, Mr. O'Neill is now a "keynote speaker/spy catcher," according to his website.
He tried unsuccessfully for years to interview Hanssen for the book. In the early 2000s, prison officials forbade him from spending even a single second in Hanssen's cell after locking him up for weeks in a cramped, bureaucratic office.
Mr. O'Neill regretted not pressing harder to get it after learning of Hanssen's passing.
I would have questioned him about why he committed the act because it's something I'm pretty sure I know but that he has never disclosed to anyone. " .
Less introspective was Mr. Garcia's response to the news.
"He's probably the worst spy there has ever been. For the harm he caused to the US and Russia and the people who lost their lives as a result of the information he divulged. for continuing to do it so long. It was simply amazing that it transpired in the manner it did.
. "
