Aldrich Ames

1941 – 2026

Aldrich Hazen Ames was an American CIA counterintelligence officer who in 1985 began selling the identities of CIA assets inside the Soviet Union to the KGB in exchange for more than $4.6 million in cash, a sum then unprecedented for an American spy. The information he provided led directly to the arrest and execution of at least ten CIA-recruited Soviet officials, compromising more highly classified U.S. intelligence assets than any other officer until Robert Hanssen's 2001 arrest. He was convicted of espionage in 1994 and served a life sentence without the possibility of parole until his death in January 2026 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM