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US FBI Agent Arrested for Spying for Russia
A Veteran FBI agent of the United States has been arrested on charge of spying for Russia, the FBI announced Tuesday.
Robert Philip Hanssen, who had been an FBI agent for 27 years, was arrested Sunday night at his home in the Washington suburbs on suspicion of spying for Russia for at least a decade, FBI spokesman Bill Carter said.
The 56-year-old Hanssen was assigned to FBI headquarters in Washington. He spent most of his career in counterintelligence, spying on Russian government outposts in the United States, said an FBI source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
US news network NBC said Hanssen was arrested shortly after FBI agents saw him deposit a package of classified information at a "dead drop" in a Virginia park.
The network quoted FBI officials as saying that among secrets disclosed by Hanssen included US methods for conducting electronic surveillance.
Hanssen may also have confirmed to the Russians the list of names of US agents operating overseas that Moscow obtained from CIA spy Aldrich Ames, US officials told NBC. Several of those agents were executed.
In June 1997 FBI agent Earl Pitts was sentenced to 27 years in prison for spying for Moscow. He had sold secret information on national defense and information on FBI agents between 1997 and 1992.
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