On 18 February 2001, Hanssen went to Foxstone Park, located in Virginia, with a plastic bag filled with classified materials. The FBI had seen him frequent the park before and as he returned to his vehicle, he was arrested and taken into custody.

Hanssen was arrested on February 18, 2001, at Foxstone Park, near his home in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Vienna, Virginia, after leaving a package of classified materials at a dead drop site.

In February 2001, agents arrested him in Foxstone Park in the Washington suburb of Vienna, Va., a few blocks from his home, after he had left classified documents in a garbage bag at a “dead drop” for his Russian handlers under a wooden footbridge.