The granddaddy of all moles, Robert Hanssen was a career FBI officer who spent decades spying for the Soviet Union, including the GRU – the Soviet military intelligence unit- and the KGB. Hanssen worked his way up in the FBI and was charged with a variety of jobs related to intelligence gathering and counter-intelligence for the FBI, selling what he knew to the Russians for more than $1 million in cash and diamonds between 1979 and 1999. That information included the identities of Soviets in Russia spying on behalf of the CIA, Soviets in the U.S. acting as double agents and FBI investigations into U.S. citizens spying for the Soviets. At various times, Hanssen was put in charge of the FBI unit that was responsible for identifying and capturing Soviet spies in the U.S.and on two occasions gave the soviets a complete list of American double agents. He handed over extensive information about U.S. signals intelligence and surveillance efforts, including the construction of a tunnel beneath the Soviet embassy in Washington D.C. Despite numerous slips and sloppy spy work, Hanssen eluded detection for decades. He was finally arrested in February, 2001, in the act of passing on classified documents and pled guilty to 13 counts of espionage in 2001 in exchange for a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
(Photos via Federal Bureau of Investigation)
