Random Famous American Double Agents (15 items)

• 

  (#1) Edward Bancroft

  • Dec. at 77 (1744-1821)

  Spy Profile: British citizen who turned double agent for the Colonies and played both sides.

  Bancroft was born in 1745 in Massachusetts, a British citizen by both birth and loyalty. He became a doctor and eventually found his way to London. It was there that he was recruited by none other than Benjamin Franklin to spy for the Committee of Secret Correspondence, which was the intelligence and foreign relations arm of the Second Continental Congress.

  While he sent documents back to the Colonies, Bancroft was alarmed at the idea of war between France and Britain over American independence. So Bancroft agreed to spy for Britain while keeping up the appearance of spying for the Colonies. He proved to be an ineffective spy, gathering little useful intelligence for either side. There's even some evidence Franklin knew Bancroft was a double agent and did nothing to stop him.
  
• 

  (#2) John Champe

  • Dec. at 46 (1752-1798)

  Spy Profile: Colonial soldier who pretended to defect to the British.

  A sergeant in the Colonial Army, Champe was selected for a secret and dangerous mission: kidnap and return the traitor Benedict Arnold. It was arranged for Champe to "defect" to the British line, where he was captured, met Arnold, and sussed out that the rogue general was acting alone when he switched sides.

  On the eve of carrying out his mission, Champe's unit was sent to New York, and he participated in the infamous Raid on Richmond that destroyed the entire city. Champe eventually escaped and returned to Colonial territory.
  
• 

  (#3) James Rivington

  • Dec. at 78 (1724-1802)

  Spy Profile: Colonial loyalist who spied for the Continental Army.

  Despite being the publisher of one of the Colonies' most fervent Loyalist newspapers, Rivington was a member of the famous Culper Spy Ring, passing information on British troop movements to George Washington. Rivington's furious screeds against the Revolution had earned him so much ire from patriots that he was burned in effigy, had his press destroyed, and his house burned down. Even so, he wrote in invisible ink on the walls of his print shop, and stayed in New York after the British evacuated it.

  Rivington's motives for acting as a provocateur/spy remain unknown, but are speculated to be financial.
  
• 

  (#4) James Armistead Lafayette

  Spy Profile: American slave who pretended to defect to the British during the Revolutionary War.

  Lafayette was a slave who volunteered to serve the Continental Army as a double agent, pretending to be a runaway who defected to the British. In this guise, he befriended Benedict Arnold, and later General Cornwallis. These fake friendships got him access to British troop deployment plans at Yorktown - which played a key role in the American victory there. 

  After the Revolutionary War ended, Lafayette remained a slave due to a technicality in Virginia's manumission laws. After four years, he finally had a petition approved that granted his freedom, and he became a wealthy farmer, who himself owned several slaves.
  
• 

  (#5) Elizabeth Van Lew

  • Dec. at 82 (1818-1900)

  Spy Profile: Conferdate who turned double agent for the Union.

  A spinster living with her widowed mother, Van Lew played the loyal Confederate citizen in the southern capital Richmond, but was secretly one of the most prolific spies the Union had. A fervent abolitionist, she simultaneously had a prominent role in Richmond society while passing information to the Union and facilitating escapes from the notorious Libby Prison.

  Van Lew would bring food, blankets, and medicine to high level Union POWs, and despite bullying by fellow Confederates, she smuggled messages in and out, and even hid several escapees in her home. By 1864, Van Lew was running an entire spy network, giving detailed information on southern prison camps, troop movements, and the defenses around the Confederate capital. Union troops finally took the capital in April, 1865, and Van Lew's treason was fully revealed. She became a pariah, subsisting on donations from families whose sons she'd helped rescue.
  
• 

  (#6) William Sebold

  Spy Profile: American recruited by the Nazis, who turned double agent for the United States.

  German by birth and a veteran of World War I, Sebold moved to the US in 1921, worked in aircraft manufacturing, and became a citizen in 1936. Three years later, while in Germany, he was "recruited" by the Gestapo to spy for the Nazis. Despite being given specialized training and equipment, Sebold immediately turned himself in and volunteered to help the FBI.

  With their help, Sebold infiltrated the largest Nazi spy ring in the US, based in New York. He befriended high-level agents and helped set up a radio transmitter that was actually run by the FBI. He sent hundreds of junk messages to Germany, receiving very real intelligence in return. Finally, in 1941, the FBI moved in and arrested 33 German agents. Sebold disappeared into witness protection, but became beset by paranoia that Nazis were out to get him. He died in 1970 in a California mental hospital.
  
• 

  (#7) Dimitri Polyakov

  Spy Profile: Soviet who turned double agent for the United States.

  Dimitri Polyakov served in the Red Army during World War II before joining the Soviet Intelligence arm. On his second assignment in New York, he offered to serve as a double agent, allegedly because Soviet authorities denied him permission to take his seriously ill son to New York for treatment.

  Over the next 25 years, Polyakov grew in stature for both agencies, passing along priceless information to the US. He exposed the Sino-Soviet Split, leading to Nixon opening relations with China in 1972. He also provided technical data on Soviet-made antitank missiles and weapons that were sold to Iraq and used in the Gulf War. He was finally arrested in 1986, likely betrayed by American double agent Robert Hanssen. He was executed two years later.
  
• 

  (#8) Oleg Penkovsky

  • Dec. at 44 (1919-1963)

  Spy Profile: Soviet officer who passed information to the Britain and the United States.

  Penkovsky was a high-level colonel in Soviet intelligence who was simultaneously passing critical information to British and American agencies. His greatest achievement was revealing the exact disposition and status of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, giving the Kennedy administration vital ammunition in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis.

  Though his status as a double agent apparently had been known for a year, the Soviets allowed Penkovsky to continue to pass information, until he revealed too much about Cuba. He was arrested days before Kennedy's speech to the nation on the crisis, and likely executed.
  
• 

  (#9) Aldrich Ames

  • 77

  Spy Profile: American who turned double agent for the KGB.

  Despite working for the CIA for over 30 years, Ames turned and was secretly passing information to the KGB. He had worked his way into a high-level position handling sensitive material, including lists of Soviet defectors. But in 1985, he approached the Soviets, and after receiving a large sum of money, began passing them the highly classified and damaging material to which he had access.

  Ames spent nine years as a double agent, working for the CIA while spying for the Russians. He made huge amounts of money, and spent it lavishly on a new house, sports cars, and tailored suits - all of which eventually attracted suspicion. Physical and electronic surveillance confirmed the CIA's hunch, and Ames was arrested in 1994. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to life in prison - leaving the CIA in shambles for years.
  
• 

  (#10) Robert Hanssen

  • 74

  Spy Profile: American who turned double agent for the Soviets.

  Hanssen's double act, spying for the Soviet Union while working for the FBI, compromised more American assets than any double agent in history. Just three years after joining the FBI in 1976, Hanssen was moved to counterintelligence. He approached Soviet agents, offering his services in exchange for money.

  Over the next 22 years, Hanssen outed Soviet informants, compromised American operations, and passed along extremely sensitive information. At once point, the FBI became suspicious that they'd been infiltrated and assigned a team to find a mole; the team was led by Hanssen. Even after the Soviet Union collapsed, Hanssen kept spying, this time for the Russian Federation. He was finally arrested in 2001, after an extensive mole hunt led to him being caught on tape passing information. He pleaded guilty to espionage, and will spend the rest of his life in prison. He did incredible damage to the FBI, and his only motivation was money.
  
• 

  (#11) April Fool

  Spy Profile: American who turned double agent for Iraq, for the benefit of the United States.

  Little is known about "April Fool," the American double agent working for Iraq who simultaneously fooled Saddam Hussein into deploying much of his army away from where the American invasion would take place. His name, location, and the exact details of what he did are still classified. But his phony intelligence led to Saddam thinking the American 4th Infantry division would invade Iraq through Jordan in the north, causing him to divert resources to stopping it.
  
• 

  (#12) Iyman Faris

  • 49

  Spy Profile: Naturalized American citizen who turned double agent for Al Qaeda and played both sides.

  Pakistani-born Faris was a naturalized US citizen working as a truck driver, while also serving as a sleeper agent for Al Qaeda for over three years. He was recruited when he went back to Pakistan to visit family, and investigated the possibility of obtaining a small plane for Osama bin Laden. He was involved in the aborted plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, and was captured by the FBI in 2003. While in FBI custody, he cooperated, agreed to work as a double agent, and gave up Pakistani-American Al Qaeda operative Majid Khan.

  Faris then recanted his testimony, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
  
• 

  (#13) Oleg Kalugin

  • 84

  Spy Profile: KGB officer who turned double agent for the United States.

  Kalugin was the longtime head of KGB operations in the US, but was demoted after being deemed a security risk. He became a relentless critic of the agency and its operations, and was finally stripped of his rank and clearance by Mikhail Gorbachev. After helping to get Boris Yeltsin installed as Prime Minister of Russia, Kalugin defected to the US. He claims he never outed any Soviet agents who weren't already known to the west, and wrote two books about his experiences.

  He has harshly criticized former underling Vladimir Putin, claimed Edward Snowden was willingly cooperating with Putin, and was sentenced to prison in absentia in Russia.
  
• 

  (#14) Katrina Leung

  • 65

  Spy Profile: Naturalized American citizen who spied for both the US and China.

  Leung was a Chinese-born naturalized citizen who had ties to the business and intelligence communities in both China and the west coast of the US. She was recruited to spy on China by the FBI in 1984. The agency sped up her naturalization process and paid her to be recruited by Chinese intelligence. She was, and began passing along information on the LA FBI office.

  Once she began spying, Leung became more and more of an asset to the FBI, but was eventually turned and began passing along real information to the Chinese. In 2002, she was discovered to have stolen photographs of FBI agents, and had copies of Top Secret documents to hand over. She was arrested in early 2003, but her case was dismissed due to misconduct by the prosecution. She likely compromised dozens of FBI cases, and passed along false information for years.
  
• 

  (#15) Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi

  • Dec. at 32 (1977-2009)

  Spy Profile: Jordanian who turned double agent for the United States and played both sides.

  Al-Balwai was a Kuwaiti-born Jordanian citizen who agreed to give information on Al Qaeda elements to the CIA. He was arrested by Jordan in 2007, and likely turned, following interrogation. After two years spent infiltrating Islamist ranks, Al-Balwai was invited to Camp Chapman, a CIA installation in Afghanistan allegedly used as a major hub of counterterrorism operations.

  On December 30, 2009, still loyal to jihadist causes, Al-Balawi blew up a 30-pound bomb strapped to his chest after being allowed in the camp, killing seven CIA employees.
  

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking