Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who was one of the most damaging spies in American history, was found dead in his prison cell Monday morning, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Hanssen, 79, was arrested in 2001 and pleaded guilty to selling highly classified material to the Soviet Union and later Russia.
Hanssen was found unresponsive and staff immediately initiated life-saving measures, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Kristie Breshears said in a statement.
Three years after he was hired by the FBI, Hanssen approached the Soviets and began spying in 1979 for the KGB and its successor, the SVR.
He was joining the FBI to do that — not to spy against the U.S., but to go in and hunt spies.".
Hanssen was arrested after making a dead drop in a Virginia park in 2001 after the FBI had been secretly monitoring him for months. »