Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

Robert Hanssen: FBI Espionage

In 1979, only three years after joining the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviet GRU and offered his services. He never indicated any political or ideological motive for his actions, telling the FBI after he was caught that his only motivation was profit. During his first espionage cycle, Hanssen provided a significant amount of information to the GRU, including details of the FBI's bugging activities and lists of suspected Soviet intelligence agents. His most important leak was the betrayal of Dmitri Polyakov, a CIA informant who passed enormous amounts of information to American intelligence while he rose to the rank of General in the Soviet Army. For unknown reasons, the Soviets did not act against Polyakov until he was betrayed a second time by CIA mole Aldrich Ames in 1985. Polyakov was arrested in 1986 and executed in 1988. Ames was officially blamed for giving Polyakov's name to the Soviets, while Hanssen's attempt was not revealed until after his 2001 capture.

FBI counterintelligence unit, further espionage activities (1985–1991)

In 1981, Hanssen was transferred to FBI headquarters in Washington D.C. and moved to the suburb of Vienna, Virginia. His new job in the FBI's budget office gave him access to information involving many different FBI operations. This included all the FBI activities related to wiretapping and electronic surveillance, which were Hanssen's responsibility. He became known in the Bureau as an expert on computers.

Three years later, Hanssen transferred to the FBI's Soviet analytical unit, which was responsible for studying, identifying, and capturing Soviet spies and intelligence operatives in the United States. Hanssen's section was in charge of evaluating Soviet agents who volunteered to give intelligence to determine whether they were genuine or re-doubled agents. In 1985, Hanssen was again transferred to the FBI's field office in New York, where he continued to work in counter-intelligence against the Soviets. It was after the transfer, while on a business trip back to Washington, that he resumed his career in espionage.

On October 1, 1985, Hanssen sent an anonymous letter to the KGB offering his services and asking for US$100,000 in cash. In the letter, he gave the names of three KGB agents secretly working for the FBI: Boris Yuzhin, Valery Martynov, and Sergei Motorin. Although Hanssen was unaware of it, all three agents had already been exposed earlier that year by Ames. Martynov, Motorin, and Yuzhin were recalled to Moscow, where they were arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of espionage against the USSR. Martynov and Motorin were condemned to death and executed via a gun-shot to the back of the head. Yuzhin was imprisoned for six years before he was released under a general amnesty to political prisoners, and subsequently emigrated to the U.S. Because the FBI blamed Ames for the leak, Hanssen was not suspected nor investigated. The October 1 letter was the beginning of a long, active espionage period for Hanssen.

Hanssen was recalled yet again to Washington in 1987. He was given the task of making a study of all known and rumored penetrations of the FBI in order to find the man who had betrayed Martynov and Motorin; this meant that he was looking for himself. Hanssen ensured that he did not unmask himself with his study, but in addition, he turned over the entire study—including the list of all Soviets who had contacted the FBI about FBI moles—to the KGB in 1988. That same year, Hanssen, according to a government report, "committed a serious security breach" by revealing secret information to a Soviet defector during a debriefing. The agents working underneath him reported this breach to a supervisor, but no action was taken.

In 1989, Hanssen compromised the FBI investigation of Felix Bloch, a State Department official who had come under suspicion for espionage. Hanssen warned that Bloch was under investigation, causing the KGB to abruptly break off contact with Bloch. The FBI was unable to produce any hard evidence, and as a result, Bloch was never charged with a crime, although the State Department later terminated his employment and denied his pension. The failure of the Bloch investigation, and the FBI's investigation of how the KGB found out they were investigating Bloch, drove the mole hunt that eventually led to the arrest of Hanssen.