List of Famous Spys

Aldrich Hazen "Rick" Ames is a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer turned KGB double agent, who was convicted of espionage in 1994. He is serving a life sentence, without the possibility of parole, in the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, United States. Ames was formerly a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer who committed espionage against the U.S. by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. At the time of his arrest, Ames had compromised more highly classified CIA assets than any other officer in history until Robert Hanssen's arrest seven years later in 2001.

Policarpa Salavarrieta, also known as "La Pola", was a Neogranadine seamstress who spied for the Revolutionary Forces during the Spanish Reconquista of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. She was captured by Spanish Royalists and ultimately executed for high treason. The Day of the Colombian Woman is commemorated on the anniversary of her death. She is now considered a heroine of the independence of Colombia.

Carmen Mory was a Swiss-Nazi German spy and kapo in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. She was sentenced to death in the Hamburg Ravensbrück trials in 1947.

Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was a Soviet intelligence agent and partisan who operated in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II and who personally killed six high-ranking German officials. His file is still not fully disclosed and will be held until 2025 in the FSB archives. It was not until 1990 that Kuznetsov was officially recognized as a NKVD agent. He used several pseudonyms during his intelligence operations: e.g. Rudolf Schmidt, Nikolai Vasilevitsh Grachev and Oberleutnant Paul Siebert. Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Charles-Geneviève-Louis-Auguste-André-Timothée d'Éon de Beaumont, usually known as the Chevalier d'Éon, was a French diplomat, spy, and soldier. D'Éon fought in the Seven Years' War, and spied for France while in Russia and England. D'Éon had androgynous physical characteristics and natural abilities as a mimic and a spy. D'Éon appeared publicly as a man and pursued masculine occupations for 49 years, although during that time d'Éon successfully infiltrated the court of Empress Elizabeth of Russia by presenting as a woman. For 33 years, from 1777, d'Éon lived as a woman. Doctors who examined d'Éon's body after death discovered "male organs in every respect perfectly formed", but also feminine characteristics.

Violette Morris was an outstanding and versatile French athlete who won two gold and one silver medal at the Women's World Games in 1921–1922. She was later banned from competing for violating "moral standards". During World War II, she was accused of collaboration with Nazis and the Vichy France regime. She was killed in 1944 in a Resistance-led ambush.

Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 to the Soviet Union, with his fellow spy Donald Maclean, led to a serious breach in Anglo-United States intelligence co-operation, and caused long-lasting disruption and demoralisation in Britain's foreign and diplomatic services.

Félix Sanz Roldán is a retired Spanish Army general and intelligence officer who served as Director of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) from July 2009 to July 2019. He served as Chief of the Defence Staff (JEMAD) of the Spanish Armed Forces during the first government of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004–2008).

Helene "Elli" Barczatis was a typist-secretary who worked between April 1950 and January 1953 as the head secretary of the East German prime minister, Otto Grotewohl. Convicted of espionage, she and her lover Karl Laurenz were guillotined on 23 November 1955.

Tarık Ümit was a Turkish intelligence official in the National Intelligence Organization (MIT). He was kidnapped and murdered in March 1995.