Highest sum paid for a single piece of intelligence

The highest sum paid for a single piece of intelligence is $7 million, paid by the FBI to Aleksandr Shcherbakov (RUS) in exchange for a dossier of information on the mole known as "Ramon Garcia" (later identified as FBI agent Robert Hanssen). The dossier was handed over to US intelligence in Moscow on 4 November 2000 and Aleksandr Shcherbakov was ferried to the US with his family on the 14th.

Alexsandr Scherbakov worked as a counterintelligence operative in the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., between 1981 and 1985. During that time he was involved with the handling of the John Walker spy ring (a group of informants coordinated by a mole within US naval intelligence) and tasked with attempting to infiltrate the US military-industrial complex. He was also involved in the handling of an anonymous source, known only to the KGB as "Ramon Garcia".

Once back in the Soviet Union, Scherbakov was assigned to the American department of Directorate K, the KGBs counterintelligence group. This energetic young officer rose through the ranks at KGB headquarters, but was secretly dissatisfied with life in the security services. Over the course of several months in the late 1980s, Scherbakov copied the titles of every document leaked to the KGB by "Ramon Garcia" into his personal notebook, along with details about delivery dates and contacts. He had no immediate plans to defect, but he knew that this intelligence treasure trove could be a useful nest egg that he could keep for a rainy day.

By the mid-1990s, Scherbakov was a senior officer in the SVR (one of the KGB's successor organisations) and regarded as a likely future general. However, instead of continuing to work his way up through the hierarchy, in 1995 Scherbakov resigned from his position and left the security services. Shortly before his departure, he took copies of the rest of the Ramon Garcia file and stashed them in his mother's garage.

For the next few years, Scherbakov attempted to set himself up as an independent businessman – exporting Russian-made goods to the United States. His business ventures were unsuccessful, however, and by the turn of the millennium Scherbakov found himself divorced, out of work and in debt to the Irkutsk Mafia. It was around this time that he came to the attention of the FBI.

For most of the 1990s, a group within the FBI, headed by veteran agent Mike Rochford, had been making cold-call approaches to current and former Russian intelligence officers. They were offering a one-million-dollar cash reward and resettlement in the USA for anyone who could provide information on the mole they knew was in their midst, but no-one had taken up the offer. The threat of retribution from the Russian government, either in the form of a conviction for treason or a assassination squad, was clearly more than what the US offer could counter.

Despite the dire straits he was in, Scherbakov knew that he was sitting on a goldmine. The FBI's $1 million dollar reward was for any clue that might point them to their mole. They were willing to settle for something like the slim hint – "an ex-NSA agent with red hair" – that led them to Robert Pelton in 1985. Instead of a fragment of hearsay, however, Scherbakov had a suitcase filled with documents that detailed every aspect of Ramon Garcia's career. He did not intend to sell this cheap.

After months of back-and-forth, the FBI and Scherbakov agreed a price of $7 million for the dossier, along with guarantees of safe passage and resettlement in the United States. For context, the CIA mole Aldrich Ames – probably the most important asset the Soviet Union ever had – was paid only $4.6 million over the course of his decade-long spying career. As of 2018, Scherbakov was reportedly alive and settled under a new identity in the United States.