Aldrich Ames
1941–2026
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- spy
Incarceration history
- FCI CumberlandDates unknown
Biography
Aldrich Hazen Ames (; May 26, 1941 – January 5, 2026) was an American counterintelligence officer with the Central Intelligence Agency who was convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Russia in 1994. Ames was responsible for the arrest and eventual execution of numerous Soviet and Russian officials secretly working on behalf of the United States intelligence community. He served a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in various federal prisons until his death in 2026 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland. He had compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other intelligence officer until the arrest of FBI agent Robert Hanssen in 2001. Both Ames and Hanssen were recruited by Victor Cherkashin, a high-ranking KGB officer.