Hanssen’s Codename “Ramon Garcia” – a Clue to His Ames Connection

Robert Phillip Hanssen’s KGB codename of “Ramon Garcia” gave CIA and FBI investigators an important clue to his connection with the convicted Russian spy Aldrich Ames. It was highly unusual for Russian intelligence to give its double agents Spanish names. Investigators were immediately reminded Ames’s Colombian-born wife Rosario, who was convicted with her husband of spying for Moscow and returned to her home land with their son Paul after serving her five-year prison sentence. According to our intelligence experts, in the eighties, KGB espionage operations inside the United Nations HQ in New York were run from the Soviet embassy in Colombian capital of Bogota. That was exactly the period in which Hanssen was assigned by the FBI with surveillance of Russian targets in New York, including suspects in the Russian UN mission. Hanssen was instructed to passed the secrets he gathered for the KGB through Bogota, unless the material was particularly sensitive. In that case, he would hand it over to Ames, who was often in Bogota on visits with his wife’s family.

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