What happened to Robert Hanssen? Former FBI agent turned Russian spy found dead in Colorado prison
Henry Morales
Published Jan 12, 2026
On Monday, June 5, 79-year-old previous FBI specialist Robert Hanssen was tracked down dead in his cell at a government jail in Florence, Colorado. While specialists have not yet revealed the specific reason for death, a source let Politico know that being normal causes is accepted. Hanssen, indicted for being a Covert operative, had gotten 15 continuous life sentences for offering US insight to the Russian government.
At the hour of his demise, Robert Hanssen was around 21 years into his sentence. He was imprisoned at ADX Florence, thought about the most dependable Greatest Security Jail in the US. Examiners asserted that he got more than 1.4 million in real money, jewels, bank assets, and extravagance watches as a trade-off for offering data to the Russian government.
The Gatekeeper revealed that Robert Hanssen began his vocation in the FBI on January 12, 1976. Government specialists trust that in 1979, he previously moved toward a Soviet Focal Organization to offer his administrations as a covert operative. Authorities expressed that after being captured many years after the fact, he said that he had no philosophical intention behind the double-crossing. Hanssen conceded that he was essentially determined by monetary benefit.
The #FBI knew by the 1990s that there was a Soviet “mole.” In 2000, data from a Russian source assisted them with focusing in on Hanssen. Following quite a while of examination, specialists captured #RobertHanssen 10 minutes after he put a dead drop in Foxstone Park in Virginia. 🗣️Eric O’Neill…
In 1981, after he started working at the FBI Base camp in Washington, DC, Hanssen was given admittance to ordered data with respect to electronic observation and wire-tapping. In 1984, he was moved to a FBI counter-surveillance unit that studied and caught spies for the USSR. He was additionally answerable for assessing whether certain Russian government operatives could be relied upon to go about as twofold specialists.
Robert Hanssen’s collaboration with Russian government operatives proceeded, as he requested amounts of cash in return for data. In 1985, he got $100,000 for illuminating the KGB around three Russian covert agents furtively teaming up with the FBI. In 1987, he was approached by the FBI to examine the very data break that he was answerable for.
BREAKING INTEL: @CBSNews has confirmed that Robert Hanssen, a former @FBI agent and one of the most damaging spies in U.S. history, has died. He was found unresponsive this morning, per the Bureau of Prisons. Hanssen was 79 and had spent the last 22+ years in federal custody.
— The Spy Museum (@IntlSpyMuseum) June 5, 2023
The FBI and CIA teamed up on a joint examination concerning American moles in 1994. At last, the American examiners paid a KGB specialist for secret tapes of different discussions. One of the American specialists perceived a voice that matched Hanssen’s. In 2000, Hanssen was advanced, a stunt utilized by the FBI to ensure he didn’t realize he was firmly checked.
CNN detailed that in 2001, Robert Hanssen started thinking that the FBI was surveilling him. On February 18 of that year, FBI specialists captured him after he left a bundle with delicate data for a Russian contact in Virginia’s Yellowstone Park. His capture was declared two days after the fact, on February 20.
ADX Florence specialists declared after Hanssen’s demise that the case is touchy and that they can’t deliver any further insights concerning the episode.