NEW YORK (AP) — A former senior FBI counterintelligence official has been charged with aiding a Russian oligarch in violation of U.S. sanctions. In a separate indictment, he was additionally charged with taking money from a former overseas safety officer.
Charles McGonigal, the particular agent accountable for the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, is accused in an indictment launched Monday of engaged on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire, with a former Soviet diplomat-turned-Russian interpreter, to have labored collectively.
McGonigal, who oversaw investigations into Russian oligarchs, together with Deripaska, earlier than retiring in 2018, allegedly labored to get sanctions towards Deripaska lifted in 2019 and took cash from him in 2021 to analyze a rival oligarch.
McGonigal (54) and interpreter Sergey Shestakov (69) have been arrested on Saturday. McGonigal was taken into custody after touchdown at John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport. They’re scheduled to seem in court docket in Manhattan on Monday. Each are being held in a federal jail in Brooklyn.
McGonigal and Shestakov are charged with violating the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act and conspiring to commit cash laundering and cash laundering. Shestakov can also be accused of creating materials misrepresentations to the FBI.
McGonigal was individually charged in federal court docket in Washington, DC with concealing $225,000 in funds he acquired from an out of doors supply with whom he traveled to Europe.
McGonigal was required to report contacts with overseas officers to the FBI, however prosecutors allege that he hid this from his employer whereas on enterprise and touring overseas, making a battle of curiosity together with his legislation enforcement duties.
The US Treasury Division added Deripaska to its sanctions listing in 2018 for alleged ties to the Russian authorities and the Russian power sector amid Russia’s ongoing threats towards Ukraine.
In September, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Deripaska and three associates with conspiring to violate US sanctions by plotting to make sure his baby was born in the USA.
Legal professionals for McGonigal and Shestakov acquired messages asking for remark. Deripaska’s attorneys didn’t instantly reply to an e-mail searching for remark Monday.
The New York indictment alleges that McGonigal was launched in 2018 by Shestakov, a former Soviet diplomat who served as Deripaska’s agent. That particular person just isn’t recognized in court docket filings, however the Justice Ministry says he was “rumored to be a Russian intelligence officer in public media studies.”
In accordance with the indictment, Shestakov requested McGonigal for his assist in getting Deripaska’s agent’s daughter an internship with the New York Metropolis Police Division. McGonigal agreed, prosecutors say, telling a police division contact, “I am curious about her father for numerous causes.”
The Justice Division says McGonigal additionally hid from the FBI key particulars of a 2017 journey to Albania he made with a former member of that nation’s intelligence company who gave him the $225,000.
For instance, prosecutors say he didn’t determine the particular person as his touring companion or revealed that the lodging could be free for him.
In accordance with the Ministry of Justice, he met Albania’s Prime Minister there and suggested him towards granting oilfield drilling licenses within the nation to Russian shell firms. McGonigal’s Albanian contacts had a monetary curiosity in these selections, prosecutors say.
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Related Press author Eric Tucker reported from Washington.