The previous top FBI agent in Recent York for counterintelligence was arrested with an ex-Russian diplomat and charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Russia after he left the FBI by attempting to help the oligarch Oleg Deripaska get off the sanctions list, federal prosecutors said Monday.
The ex-agent, Charles McGonigal individually was charged Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., in reference to accepting $225,000 in money — while working on the FBI — from a one that had business interests in Europe who had been an worker of Albania’s foreign intelligence service.
That other person later became an FBI source in a criminal probe of foreign political lobbying, which McGonigal was supervising, authorities said.
McGonigal, who’s charged with making false statements and other charges in that case, also allegedly didn’t disclose, as required, that in an October 2017 trip to Albania and Kosovo, he had met with Albania’s prime minister and with a Kosovar politician.
“Mr. McGonigal betrayed his solemn oath to the US in exchange for private gain and on the expense of our national security,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Donald Alway.Â
Within the case related to Deripaska, a five-count indictment in U.S. District Court in Manhattan charges the 54-year-old McGonigal and Sergey Shestakov, 69, with violating the Russia sanctions, along with money laundering.
Shestakov is a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who most recently worked as an interpreter for the Brooklyn federal court and prosecutors there. He has U.S. citizenship.
The Morris, Connecticut, resident can be charged with lying to the FBI during questioning by concealing the character of his and McGonigal’s relationship with an worker of Deripaska’s who was also rumored to be a Russian spy.
The alleged criminal acts on Deripaska’s behalf began the yr after McGonigal, who lives in Recent York City, retired from the FBI in 2018 after 22 years of service.
However the indictment says he also used his law enforcement connections before his retirement to acquire an internship with the Recent York Police Department for the college-age daughter of Deripaska’s worker.
McGonigal previously had investigated Deripaska, who made his fortune in Russia’s aluminum industry, while on the FBI.
He was arrested Saturday night at JFK International Airport in Queens, Recent York, after flying there from the Middle East.
McGonigal and Shestakov, 69, who also was arrested Saturday evening, are because of appear in court in Manhattan later Monday.
The costs against them carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in the event that they are convicted. McGonigal faces the same maximum sentence within the criminal case in Washington,
McGonigal’s LinkedIn profile says he most recently worked as a senior vice chairman at business real estate giant Brookfield Properties. An organization spokesman previously said he left Brookfield in January 2022.
CNBC has requested comment from lawyers for McGonigal and Shestakov.
The 21-year indictment against McGonigalsays that in 2021 he and Shestakov agreed to and did investigate a rival Russian oligarch of Deripaska in return for concealed payments from Deripaska. Those alleged payments violated sanctions that the US imposed on Deripaska in 2018, the indictment says.
McGonigal, who was accountable for the FBI’s counterintelligence operations in Recent York from 2016 to 2018, knew his alleged actions violated the sanctions, having received what was then-classified details about Deripaska being added to the list of sanctioned oligarchs, the indictment says. Those sanctions were imposed because of this of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael Driscoll, in a press release, said, “Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska perform global malign influence on behalf of the Kremlin and are related to acts of bribery, extortion, and violence.”
The indictment said that McGonigal, while still serving on the FBI in 2018, was introduced by Shestakov via email to an worker of Deripaska, who had been rumored in media reports to be a Russian intelligence officer. That Deripaska worker, identified within the indictment as “Agent-1” also was a former Soviet and Russian diplomat.
Shestakov asked McGonigal to assist the worker’s daughter get an internship with the Recent York Police Department within the fields of “counterterrorism, intelligence gathering and ‘international liaisoning,’ ” the indictment says.
McGonigal agreed to assist, and told an FBI supervisor who worked for him that he desired to recruit the Deripaska worker, the indictment says.
“Through McGonigal’s efforts, Agent-1’s daughter received VIP treatment from the NYPD,” the indictment says.
“An NYPD Sergeant assigned to transient Agent-1’s daughter subsequently reported the event to the NYPD and FBI because, amongst other reasons, Agent-1’s daughter claimed to have an unusually close relationship to ‘an FBI agent’ who had given her access to confidential FBI files, and it was unusual for a school student to receive such special treatment from the NYPD and FBI.”
In 2019, after McGonigal retired, Shestakov and he introduced the lady’s father to a world law firm in Manhattan, which the Deripaska worker sought to retain in an effort to get sanctions on the oligarch lifted, the indictment says.
During those negotiations, McGonigal traveled to London and Vienna to satisfy Deripaska and others on the oligarch’s residences, the indictment alleges.
In electronic communications between McGonigal, Shestakov and the Deripaska worker, they didn’t consult with the oligarch by his surname, but as a substitute used terms like “the person,” “our friend in Vienna,” and the Vienna client,” the indictment charges.
Deripaska ended up retaining the law firm for work to attempt to lift the sanctions, at a price of $175,000 per 30 days, with $25,000 earmarked for “certain other professionals,” in response to the indictment.
The law firm retained McGonigal as a consultant and investigator in its work for Deripaska, the charging document says. McGonigal asked the firm to compensate him by transmitting $25,000 to a company owned by Shestakov, the indictment says.
The firm’s work for Deripaska was interrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the oligarch ceased paying the lawyers in around March 2020, the indictment says.
But within the spring of 2021, Agent-1 began negotiating with McGonigal and Shestakov to work directly for Deripaska, without the involvement of the law firm “on a non-legal matter not lawful” under U.S. sanctions.
That project involved the investigation of one other oligarch and his interests in a big Russian corporation which Deripaska and the opposite oligarch were fighting for control of, the indictment says.
In August 2021, the trio drew up and executed a contract that required a company based in Cyprus to pay a Recent Jersey-based corporation greater than $51,000 upon execution of the control and one other $41,790 per 30 days for “business intelligence services, evaluation, and research,” the indictment alleges.
In point of fact, the indictment says, the payments could be made to McGonigal and Shestakov, neither of whom was named in, or who signed the contract.
The Recent Jersey corporation was owned by a friend of McGonigal’s who had arranged for him to take part in its business while McGonigal was still serving as special agent in charge for counterintelligence within the Recent York FBI bureau, in response to the indictment. McGonigal had a company email account and a cellphone under a false name to hide his work, the indictment says.
While investigating the second oligarch, the indictment says, McGonigal retained subcontractors to help within the probe, without telling them the name of the client: Deripaska. One in every of those subcontractors later informed McGonigal that a 3rd party had found so-called dark web files that might reveal hidden U.S. assets owned by the second oligarch, the indictment alleges.
In late November 2021, McGonigal and Shestakov negotiated Deripaska’s worker to get funds from the oligarch to buy the dark web files, the indictment says.
“This activity largely or completely ceased on or about November 21, 2021, when special agents of the FBI, acting pursuant to court-issued search warrants, seized the defendant’s personal electronic devices,” the indictment says.
Shestakov met earlier that very same day with FBI agents in a Manhattan restaurant, where he tried “to hide the character and depth of the connection between himself, McGonigal and Agent-1,” the indictment says.
