MemberYesterday, I got so involved in the series called "The Assets," (2014) about the double life of Aldrich Ames, the spy who worked as a double agent for the CIA and KGB, that I sat watching all nine episodes (Netflix). Arrested in 1994 after a long period of investigation to determine how "assets", or double agents living in Russia, were being discovered by the Russian KGB and killed, the CIA spent long man hours to determine just how assets' names were getting out, whether the problem was either recording devices hidden in the agency, ears in the CIA's communication process, or a mole among them.
It took more than a few very obvious pieces of accusing bits of information regarding Ames' life before an arrest warrant could be secured. Prior to his arrested, Ames turned over to the Russians all the names of assets, twenty of them, out of which ten were executed. For his involvement, he was paid, in total, over two million dollars through the course of his dealings with a Russian agent he often met either openly or in hidden locations -- all during a period of a worldwide recession. While others struggled to get by on their wages, the appetite for more and more expensive things by Ames' wife, Maria del Rosario Casas, was being filled through Ames' double-dealing gains paid to him by the KGB.
A house for which they paid $540k in 1985 and the purchase of a jaguar were tips that proved Ames had come into money, but from where? His explanation was that his wife had been given an inheritance, an unlikely story as she earlier told friends she was raised in a poor Columbian home. One particularly bright CIA agent, Sandra Grimes, discovered the dates of deposits into Ames' bank accounts of less than $10k equalled the times when he had CIA sanctioned meetings with Russian officials. It was then that CIA agents on the investigation team knew they had him. But that information wasn't enough. It took stealing his garbage and rummaging through the contents from which was uncovered a torn up note regarding his drop offs of files that finally secured the warrant and search of Ames' house. In his clothes closet, he kept stacks of hundred dollar bills that totaled to over a million dollars.
In exchange for coming clean, for telling all, Ames was able to secure for his wife a mere five year sentence after which she was deported back to Columbia with her son. All of Ames' assets were frozen, and he was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Sandra Grimes went on to co-author, with Jeanne Vertefeuille, a book called "Circle of Treason," about the agency's involvement in the investigation of Ames and others.
I also liked the movie about Ames in which Timothy Hutton played the leading role, "Traitor Within." (1998)
It took more than a few very obvious pieces of accusing bits of information regarding Ames' life before an arrest warrant could be secured. Prior to his arrested, Ames turned over to the Russians all the names of assets, twenty of them, out of which ten were executed. For his involvement, he was paid, in total, over two million dollars through the course of his dealings with a Russian agent he often met either openly or in hidden locations -- all during a period of a worldwide recession. While others struggled to get by on their wages, the appetite for more and more expensive things by Ames' wife, Maria del Rosario Casas, was being filled through Ames' double-dealing gains paid to him by the KGB.
A house for which they paid $540k in 1985 and the purchase of a jaguar were tips that proved Ames had come into money, but from where? His explanation was that his wife had been given an inheritance, an unlikely story as she earlier told friends she was raised in a poor Columbian home. One particularly bright CIA agent, Sandra Grimes, discovered the dates of deposits into Ames' bank accounts of less than $10k equalled the times when he had CIA sanctioned meetings with Russian officials. It was then that CIA agents on the investigation team knew they had him. But that information wasn't enough. It took stealing his garbage and rummaging through the contents from which was uncovered a torn up note regarding his drop offs of files that finally secured the warrant and search of Ames' house. In his clothes closet, he kept stacks of hundred dollar bills that totaled to over a million dollars.
In exchange for coming clean, for telling all, Ames was able to secure for his wife a mere five year sentence after which she was deported back to Columbia with her son. All of Ames' assets were frozen, and he was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Sandra Grimes went on to co-author, with Jeanne Vertefeuille, a book called "Circle of Treason," about the agency's involvement in the investigation of Ames and others.
I also liked the movie about Ames in which Timothy Hutton played the leading role, "Traitor Within." (1998)
