A retired FBI official was charged with working for the Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska in violation of U.S. sanctions and with taking $225,000 in cash from an unidentified employee of a foreign intelligence service.
Charles McGonigal, a former special agent in charge of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York, was charged with money laundering and violating U.S. sanctions against Russia, in an indictment unsealed Monday in New York. He was charged separately with falsification of records and making false statements, in a nine-count indictment unsealed in Washington.
McGonigal, 54, was arrested Saturday evening. Prosecutors claim he agreed to investigate a Russian rival of Deripaska in exchange for concealed payments. He’s expected to appear before a judge in Manhattan federal court on Monday afternoon. A lawyer for McGonigal didn’t immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment on the charges.
Also charged in the New York case was Sergey Shestakov, a U.S. citizen and a former Russian diplomat, who worked in New York as a court translator, according to a statement from Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. Shestakov also faces an additional charge of making false statements to investigators.
McGonigal, while still working as head of counterintelligence in New York, took $225,000 in cash from “an individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service,” according to Washington U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves. McGonigal hid the nature of their relationship, prosecutors said. He traveled outside the U.S. with the person, meeting with unidentified people, prosecutors said.
McGonigal retired in 2018, then worked the next year, along with Shestakov, in an unsuccessful attempt to get the sanctions against Deripaska lifted, according to the government. Prosecutors claim Shestakov lied about the work in a recorded interview.
McGonigal and Shestakov worked to hide Deripaska’s involvement in the scheme by not directly naming him in emails, using shell companies in written contracts and to send and receive payments and using a forged signature on a contract, according to the government.
