A former senior US federal police officer was arrested in the United States on Saturday over his shady dealings with foreign actors, including Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Justice Department said Monday.
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Charles McGonigal, 54, headed counterintelligence at the FBI’s New York office before retiring in 2018, according to a ministry statement.
Arrested in New York this weekend, he faces two separate charges.
The New York federal judiciary accuses him of having worked for the founder of the aluminum giant Rusal, even though he has been the target of American sanctions since 2018, which ban him from doing business with Americans.
Charles McGonigal, who investigated Russian oligarchs during his time at the FBI, is suspected of trying – unsuccessfully – to have sanctions lifted against Mr Deripaska in 2019 and investigating one of his rivals in 2021.
According to the indictment, he was paid through shell companies and did his business through an intermediary.
Charged with violating sanctions and money laundering, he faces 20 years in prison. He is scheduled to appear before a judge on Monday with an alleged accomplice, a former Russian diplomat-turned-naturalized American and sworn translator for the justice system.
In addition, Charles McGonigal is being charged by the federal judiciary in Washington for withholding payments related to his activities in Eastern Europe while he was with the FBI.
Specifically, according to the indictment, he received $225,000 in cash from a former Albanian intelligence agent, a naturalized American, whom he accompanied on business trips to Albania and Kosovo.
He had, in breach of his duties, developed a relationship with the Prime Minister of Kosovo which he has never made public.