Russians charge more than Americans to betray their country

One lecture in Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals, by Elizabeth Murray, concerns spies. I learned that FBI agent Robert Hanssen spied on behalf of the Soviets, then Russians, for about $1.4 million. Professor Murray noted that the Russian who stole a file that the FBI was able to use to identify Hanssen needed to be paid $7 million. This is confirmed by the Wikipedia article on Hanssen:

Having failed to either bring a case against Kelley or find another suspect, the FBI decided on a new tactic: buying the mole’s identity. They searched for possible candidates to buy off and found one – a Russian businessman and former KGB agent whose identity remains classified. A cooperative American company invited him to the U.S. for a business meeting. After his arrival in New York, the FBI offered him a large sum of money if he would divulge the name of the mole. The Russian responded that he did not know the name, but that he could get the mole’s KGB/SVR file. After the Russian stole the file from SVR headquarters, the FBI agreed to pay US$7 million for the file and set up the Russian and his family with new identities in the U.S. In November 2000, the FBI finally obtained the file, consisting of a package the size of “a medium-sized suitcase.”

So it seems that it costs 5X more to buy a Russian’s loyalty than it does to buy an American’s, at least in this case.

[I mentioned this lecture to a pilot at our local airport. He said “The FBI should hire only women because if they wanted an extra $1.4 million they would just have an extra baby.” Would that work? If we assume USDA-estimated child-rearing expenses of about $200,000, that would require collecting $1.6 million in child support (tax-free, but presumably Robert Hanssen didn’t pay tax on the cash and diamonds he received). In Massachusetts, that works out to $69,565 per year for 23 years. Assuming a judge who extrapolates from the top of the guidelines, this could be done by having sex with a man earning approximately $500,000 per year. Hanssen, however, lived in Virginia. Under Virginia family law, a woman would need to have sex with a man earning over $2 million per year to collect $69,565 per year in child support and, given that child support in Virginia is paid for only 18 years, would need to find a yet-richer sex partner to come up to a $1.4 million net profit.]