"Most dangerous" CIA traitor, convicted of working for Moscow, dies in US prison

The "most dangerous" traitor of the Central Intelligence Agency, Aldrich Ames, who was sentenced to life in prison for spying for the USSR and Russia, has died in a US prison. This was reported by the newspaper The Washington Post.

A U.S. intelligence officer whose spying for Moscow was the most devastating breach in the agency's history and led to the deaths of at least 10 recruited CIA or allied intelligence agents died on January 5 in a Maryland correctional facility. He was 84 years old.

His death was recorded in the prisoner database of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which did not specify the cause of death. This information was also confirmed by a spokesperson for the agency.

Ames stated that financial difficulties led him to spy for the USSR in 1985 and remained a double agent for nine years, until his arrest in February 1994. He continued to spy for Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991.

But money, he said, was not the only reason he could justify to himself what was the worst security loss in the CIA's 47-year history.

When Ames was interviewed by WP nine weeks after his arrest, he calmly explained his willingness to commit what prosecutors called a "crime that caused the death of people," a mindset that had been formed long before he started working for Moscow.

Ames passed on to the Russians the names of recruited Soviet and Warsaw Pact agents, as well as information on hundreds of intelligence operations.

In return, he received more than $1 million in cash, and the intelligence services promised him at least another $1 million and real estate in Russia. Russian officials told author Pete Earley, who wrote a book about the traitor, that the money Moscow owed him would be transferred to his wife and son in some way.

In his plea agreement, Ames admitted that he had provided his KGB handler with the names of "virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other U.S. and foreign services known to me" as well as "a vast amount of information about U.S. foreign, defense, and security policy."

Ames was 52 years old when he was sentenced to life without parole. He pleaded guilty as part of a deal that included a reduced sentence for his wife, who was accused of being a spy.

Although U.S. intelligence agencies knew about the theft of secrets, it took years to focus on Ames. His lifestyle in the Washington area, his Jaguar car and his $540,000 house, bought for cash, raised no questions.

CBS News Channel reported that throughout Ames' career, there were many warning signs – lie detector tests that showed deceptive answers, sudden unexplained wealth, poor performance, alcohol abuse – but the CIA repeatedly ignored or overlooked these warning signs and promoted him to higher positions.

Then-CIA Director James Woolsey said that Ames was "a malicious traitor to his country who killed many people who helped the United States and the West win the Cold War." These agents died, Woolsey said, because "the traitor-murderer wanted a bigger house and a Jaguar."

• In February 2025, the WSJ wrote that Russian spy services there is a new shadowy unit that targets the West and conducts covert attacks across Europe and elsewhere.
• In October, investigator Grozev said that Russia has changed its tactics of its work abroad after a series of exposures of its spies and the expulsion of diplomats after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.