A former FBI agent, the US federal police, was arrested over the weekend and released after paying bail for his ties to a Russian tycoon, the US Justice Department said on Monday (23).
Charles McGonigal, 54, is accused of having provided intelligence services to Oleg Deripaska, founder of the aluminum giant Rusal and targeted by US sanctions since 2018 – he, other Russian oligarchs and government officials were included in a Washington blacklist on suspicion of involvement in the election that raised Donald Trump to the Presidency, which they deny.
McGonigal headed the FBI’s counterintelligence unit in New York until he retired, also in 2018. He is accused of having unsuccessfully tried to lift sanctions against Deripaska in 2019. Then, in 2021, he allegedly conducted an investigation into one of his rival businessmen at his request, receiving payment through shell firms.
If found guilty of the actions, the former agent could be sentenced to 20 years in prison. He appeared in court alongside his alleged accomplice, Serguei Shestakov, a former Russian diplomat who became a naturalized American and serves as a sworn translator in the US. Prosecutors allege Shestakov made false claims to investigators, which he denies.
McGonigal is still a suspect in another case, for concealing payments related to his activities in Eastern Europe while still working at the FBI. According to the prosecutors involved in the investigation, he received US$ 225,000 in cash from a former agent of the secret service of Albania naturalized American who served as a source for an investigation that he was overseeing.
The former agent is also alleged to have violated his obligations by concealing that he was in contact with the Prime Minister of Kosovo. He claims innocence. “Obviously today is a harrowing day for Mr McGonigal and his family. We will be reviewing the evidence and examining it closely,” his lawyer, Seth DuCharme, told the Manhattan courthouse.
The US sanctions against Russia are part of the US effort to end the Ukraine War – which the Kremlin, nearly a year after it began, still calls a “special military operation”.
Deripaska was accused of violating sanctions against him last September by plotting to have his children born in the US — he is on the run. The following month, British businessman Graham Bonham-Carter was indicted on charges of conspiring to violate sanctions by attempting to remove a work of art belonging to Deripaska from the US. Now, he faces possible extradition from the country.
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