The Most Famous Prisoner Swaps in History

Countries have been engaged in warfare since ancient times, which has often led to prisoners being held on both sides of the fight. But it isn't always those involved in wars who are taken prisoner. Often, nations that disagree, or have different policies, hold citizens from different nations in custody, usually as a political ploy to be used as pawns.

Several nations have employed this method. From Russia, which although a democracy is run more like a dictatorship ruled by Vladimir Putin, and is not considered a free nation according to Freedomhouse.org, to Iran, run by Ali Khamenei, non-citizens have found themselves in troubling situations whether they have done nothing wrong or something minor, as was the case with American WNBA star Brittney Griner, among others. (Things seem all the more worrisome when two dangerous world leaders, like Putin and North Korea's King Jong Un, become allies, as they recently did when they signed a new partnership.)

Griner entered Russia in February 2022, where she was arrested for smuggling drugs with illegal intent and was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. On Dec. 8, 2022, after months of negotiations over her wrongful imprisonment, Griner was exchanged on a tarmac in Abu Dhabi for Russian arms dealer Victor Bout, who had been a prisoner in the U.S. This trade was the latest high-profile event in a long history of prisoner swaps between the United States and hostile foreign nations.

As the number of wrongfully detained Americans abroad increases – one researcher estimates their number has risen 175% over the last decade – prisoner swaps may become more common. The U.S. and Iran recently worked out a deal that led to the release of five American citizens who were held on baseless charges for political leverage. It was a controversial swap. In exchange for their freedom, the U.S. released six billion of frozen Iranian funds held in South Korea.

Using various news and historical sources, 24/7 Tempo compiled a list of the most notable prisoner swaps in modern history. Prisoner exchanges are ordered chronologically, and the list is far from complete. Some of the most notable swaps were conducted during the Cold War, when two spies, each caught by their enemy, were exchanged and released to their respective countries of allegiance.

The iconographic blueprint for prisoner swaps is likely the 1962 exchange of American pilot Francis Gary Powers for Soviet KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel, conducted on the Glienicke Bridge spanning the border of East and West Germany – an event dramatized in Steven Spielberg's 2015 film "Bridge of Spies." (Check out prisoners of war who became celebrities.) Glienicke Bridge would serve as host to several other notable spy exchanges during the Cold War, including the largest of the era, when, in June 1985, the U.S. swapped four accused Eastern European spies for 25 individuals of various nationalities imprisoned in East Germany and Poland who were "of interest" to the U.S.

While during the Cold War prisoner swaps tended to involve rank-for-rank trades of spies or combatants, in recent years civil prisoners have been the subject of high-profile exchanges. Princeton University graduate student Xiyue Yang, for example, was arrested for espionage while conducting research in Iran. While the United States denied the charges, they ultimately secured Yang's release in exchange for Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani. (These are the most famous spies in American history.)

Many civilian prisoner swap cases have also been lopsided, as in the Griner-Bout trade, with the United States releasing serious criminals in exchange for Americans arrested abroad for bogus or trumped-up charges. Trevor Reed, for example – arrested while drunk in Moscow and sentenced to nine years in prison – was exchanged in April 2022 for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted of cocaine trafficking charges who had been serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Connecticut.

Date: February 10, 1962

American pilot Powers, whose U-2 spy plane had been shot down over the Soviet Union two years earlier, was exchanged for Abel – real name William August Fisher – a spy for the Soviets who had been convicted of espionage in the United States in 1957 and sentenced to thirty years in prison. These two spies walked in opposite directions – Powers toward the West, Abel toward the East – across Berlin's Glienicker Brücke, a bridge spanning the Havel River, which separated East and West Germany during the Cold War.

Date: June 1985

In what became the largest prisoner swap of the Cold War, the U.S. swapped four Eastern Europeans (Marian W. Zacharski, Poland; Alfred Zehe and Alice Michelson, East Germany; Penyu Baychev Kostadinov, Bulgaria) held for espionage in exchange for 25 individuals imprisoned in East Germany and Poland. While the identities of those released to the United States remain confidential, most of the 25 prisoners were of German nationality and were likely working as intelligence agents for the CIA.

Date: August 31, 1986

Soviet scientist Zakharov was arrested in New York City for allegedly buying classified documents describing U.S. Air Force jet engine technology from an FBI informant. Three days later, the KGB arrested U.S. News & World Report correspondent Daniloff in Moscow for allegedly receiving a package containing classified materials. While the arrest of Daniloff was considered a retaliatory move by the Soviet Union, the two prisoners were exchanged later that year.

Date: June 2010

After more than a decade of close surveillance, the FBI arrested a group of 10 Russian sleeper agents in the United States – the largest spy roundup since the Cold War. Less than a month later, the 10 agents were flown back to Moscow in exchange for four Soviets who were U.S. intelligence assets held in Russian prisons (Alexander Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin, Sergei Skripal, and Gennady Vasilenko).

Date: June 30, 2014

U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was captured by Taliban forces after walking off his base in Afghanistan. After five years in captivity, Bergdahl was exchanged for five high-ranking Taliban members who were being held at Guantanamo Bay, including at least one with direct ties to Osama Bin Laden.

While the exchange ended the longest detention of an American soldier since the Vietnam War, Bergdahl's return was subjected to intense media scrutiny as the circumstances around his desertion and capture came under investigation. In 2017, Bergdahl pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, was demoted to private, and was sentenced to be dishonorably discharged and fined $10,000.

• Date: December 2014

• Date: January 2016

• Date: August 2019

• Date: April 2022

• Date: February 2022