Aldrich Ames, the former CIA officer who committed one of the most severe intelligence betrayals in U.S. history by leaking secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia, has passed away in a Maryland prison at the age of 84.

The Bureau of Prisons confirmed Ames’s death on Monday.

With a 31-year career at the CIA, Ames confessed to receiving $2.5 million from Moscow in exchange for sensitive U.S. information between 1985 and his capture in 1994. His revelations included the identities of 10 Russian officials and an Eastern European individual who were covertly working for the United States or the United Kingdom, in addition to details about spy satellite operations, surveillance activities, and other espionage methods.

The intelligence he compromised led to the execution of several Western operatives behind the Iron Curtain, causing a significant blow to the CIA during the tense years of the Cold War.

Ames avoided a trial by pleading guilty to charges of espionage and tax evasion, resulting in a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors noted that his actions deprived the United States of critical intelligence resources for many years.

He professed “profound shame and guilt” for “this betrayal of trust, done for the basest motives,” money to pay debts. But he downplayed the damage he caused, telling the court he did not believe he had “noticeably damaged” the United States or “noticeably aided” Moscow.

“These spy wars are a sideshow which have had no real impact on our significant security interests over the years,” he told the court, questioning the value that leaders of any country derived from vast networks of human spies around the globe.

In a jailhouse interview with The Washington Post the day before he was sentenced, Ames said he was motivated to spy by “financial troubles, immediate and continuing.”

Ames was working in the Soviet/Eastern European division at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, when he first approached the KGB, according to an FBI history of the case. He continued passing secrets to the Soviets while stationed in Rome for the CIA and after returning to Washington.

Meanwhile, the U.S. intelligence community was frantically trying to figure out why so many agents were getting discovered by Moscow.

Ames’s spying coincided with that of FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who was caught in 2001 and charged with taking $1.4 million in cash and diamonds to sell secrets to Moscow. He died in prison in 2023.

Ames’s wife, Rosario, pleaded guilty to lesser espionage charges of assisting his spying and was sentenced to 63 months in prison.