Robert Hanssen

Robert Hanssen was an American FBI agent, traitor and spy who worked on behalf of Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States within two decades, from 1979 to 2001. His espionage was described by the Department of Justice as "possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history."

Background
Hanssen was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1944. His father, a policeman, was emotionally abusive towards him during his childhood. After graduating, he earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1966. In 1968, he married Bernadette "Bonnie" Wauck, a Roman Catholic who managed to convert Robert from his Lutheranism, prompting him to become a fervent believer. He also became involved with the Opus Dei. After unsuccesfully trying to apply for a cryptographer position in the NSA, he enrolled in dental school at Northwestern University and later switched to business, receiving an MBA in accounting and information systems in 1971. Eventually, after a four-years career in the Chicago police department as an internal affairs investigator, he joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

First Espionage Activities (1979 - 1981)
Hanssen became a special agent in 1976, and was transferred to Gary, Indiana, the same year. In 1979, after having being again transferred to New York City, he was moved to counter-intelligence and given the task to compile a database of Soviet intelligence for the Bureau. In the same year, after only three years of career in the Bureau, Hanssen approached the Soviet GRU and offered his services. During the course of his first cycle of espionage (from 1979 to 1981), he told the GRU a significant amount, including information on the FBI's bugging activities and lists of suspected soviet intelligence agents. His most important leak was the betrayal of Dmitri Polyakov, a Soviet Army general and CIA informant (for unknown reasons, however, the Soviets did not act against the latter until he was betrayed a second time by CIA mole Aldrich Ames, in 1985).

Further Espionage Activities (1985 - 1991)
Hanssen resumed his espionage in October 1985, after he was transferred to the New York field office (he was previously moved from the Virginia-based budget office to the Soviet analytical Unit). He sent a letter to the KGB were he offered his services in exchange for $100.000 in cash. In the letter, he also gave the names of three KGB agents secretly working for the FBI (however, they had already been exposed by Ames). It was the beginning of a long, active espionage period for him. Ironically enough, in 1987, he was recalled to Washington D.C. in order to investigate all known and rumored penetrations of the FBI, including some for which he himself was directly responsible. He ensured that he did not unmask himself with his study, and, in 1988, he handed it over to the KGB (the study also contained a list of all Soviets who had contacted the FBI about FBI moles). That same year, Hanssen was reported as having committed a serious security breach by revealing confidential informations to a Soviet defector during a debriefing. Eventually, no action was taken. In 1989, Hanssen compromised an FBI investigation of a State Department official who was suspected of espionage, prompting the KGB to break off contact with the latter. The failure of this investigation, and the FBI's investigation of how the KGB found out they were inquiring the official, drove the mole hunt that eventually led to the arrest of Hanssen. Later that year, Hanssen kept passing information to the KGB, including American planning for MASINT (intelligence collected by electronic means, such as radar, spy satellites, and signal intercepts), the digging of a tunnel by the FBI beneath the decoding room of a then-under construction Russian embassy, and a list of American double agents. In 1990, his brother-in-law (who was also an FBI employee and knew the Bureau was hunting for a mole) recommended to his supervisor that Hanssen be investigated for espionage. This came after Bonnie Hanssen's sister, Jeanne Beglis, found a pile of cash on a dresser in the Hanssens' house. Bonnie had previously told her brother that Hanssen once talked about retiring in Poland, then part of the Eastern Bloc. Again, no action was taken. In 1991, when Soviet Union collapsed, he broke off communications with KGB for a time, possibly fearing of being exposed in the political upheaval.

Continued Espionage Activities (1999 - 2001)
In 1992 Hanssen riskily approached the GRU by going to the Russian embassy in person and speaking to a GRU official. Identifying himself by his Soviet code name, "Ramon Garcia", and describing himself as a "disaffected FBI agent", he offered his services as a spy. The official didn't recognize the code name and left. Later, the Russians filed an official protest to the State Department, believing Hanssen to be a triple agent. Despite this, he again escaped arrest as the FBI's investigation didn't go on. In 1993, he hacked into the computer of a fellow FBI agent (presumably to see if his superiors were investigating him) and claimed to have been demonstrating flaws in the FBI's security system as a cover story, which officials believed to. In 1994, Hanssen expressed interest in transferring to the new National Counterintelligence Center, eventually changing his mind after he discovered he had to take a lie detector test to join. In 1997, convicted FBI mole Earl Edwin Pitts claimed he suspected Hanssen was a mole a swell, no action was taken. Later, Hanssen's computer was investigated following a reported failure, revealing an attempted hacking had taken place using a password cracking program installed by him. Minimizing, he was able to again avoid suspicions. During that time period, Hannsen was searching the FBI's internal computer case record to furtherly see if he was under investigation. In the fall of 1999, he resumed his contacts with the Russians and kept checking for FBI pending investigations on himself.

Investigation, Arrest, and Imprisonment
After the arrest of Aldrich Ames in 1994, the FBI and the CIA formed a joint mole-hunting team to find a suspected second intelligence leak (which compromised FBI operations of which Ames could have known nothing about).

Modus Operandi
TBA

Profile
TBA

On Criminal Minds

 * Season One
 * "Secrets and Lies" - While yet to be directly referenced in the show, Hanssen seems to have been the inspiration for the episode's unsub: Bruno Hawks. Both were United States government agents whom spied on behalf of a foreign official/agency and were the subject of a combined CIA-FBI probe that used criminal profiling to identify the mole. This probe initially zeroed in an innocent officer as the suspect, much like in the episode. Also, just like Hanssen, Bruno led the task force assembled to identify himself, and he was speculated to have betrayed his organization for ideological reasons but was determined in the end to have done it purely out of profit.