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He helped the Russian oligarch and took money from a former officer of the Albanian secret service, the former senior FBI official is arrested

2023-01-23 21:00:42Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
He helped the Russian oligarch and took money from a former officer of the
FBI

Charles McGonigal, a former senior counterintelligence officer at the FBI, has been charged with helping a Russian oligarch in violation of US sanctions. Also, other charges have been brought against him in the framework of another investigative process, because he received dry money from a former officer of the secret services of Albania

Charles McGonigal, the special agent who led New York's counterintelligence division from 2016 to 2018, is accused in a lawsuit released Monday of working with a former Soviet diplomat who was already working as a translator for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

Mr McGonigal, who led investigations into Russian oligarchs, including Mr Deripaska, before retiring in 2018, is accused of working to get sanctions lifted against him in 2019 and taking money from him in 2021 to investigate a rival oligarch.

Mr McGonigal, 54, and translator Sergey Shestakov, 69, were arrested on Saturday. Mr. McGonigal was detained after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport. They are expected to appear in court in Manhattan on Monday and are being held at the federal prison in Brooklyn.

Mr. McGonigal and Mr. Shestakov are charged with violating, as well as conspiring to violate, the International Economic Emergency Authorization Act, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Mr. Shestakov is also accused of making false statements to the FBI.

Mr. McGonigal was simultaneously accused in a court in the capital Washington of concealing 225 thousand dollars in payments he had received from an external source, a person with whom he had traveled together in Europe.

He helped the Russian oligarch and took money from a former officer of the

The Justice Department says Mr. McGonigal also withheld from the FBI details of a trip he made to Albania in 2017, along with a former Albanian intelligence official who had given him $225,000.

Prosecutors also say that he did not give the name of the person accompanying him during the trip, and did not inform that the stay was provided for him for free.

The Justice Department says that after he arrived in Albania, he met with the Albanian prime minister and discouraged him from granting licenses to Russian gas companies to explore for oil in the country. Prosecutors say that the Albanian persons who are contacts of Mr. McGonigal had financial interests in these decisions.

Mr. McGonigal should have reported contacts with foreign officials to the FBI, but prosecutors say he concealed them from his employer while continuing to take business and international trips that put him in conflict of interest with his duties as a law enforcement officer.

The U.S. Treasury Department added Mr. Deripaska to its sanctions list in 2018 for ties to the Russian government and the Russian energy sector, while Russia repeatedly threatened Ukraine.

In September, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Mr. Deripaska and three of his associates with conspiring to violate American sanctions by taking steps to ensure that his child would be born in the United States.

Messages for comment were left for attorneys for Messrs. McGonigal and Shestakov. Lawyers for Mr. Deripaska did not immediately respond to an email message on Monday seeking comment.

The New York lawsuit says Mr. McGonigal was introduced by Mr. Shestakov in 2018 to a former Soviet diplomat who was acting as an agent for Mr. Deripaska. The person's name is not given in the lawsuit, but the Justice Department says he was "said in public media reports to be an official of the Russian intelligence services."

According to the indictment, Mr. Shestakov asked Mr. McGonigal for his help in securing an internship with the New York Police Department for the daughter of Mr. Deripaska's agent. Mr. McGonigal agreed, prosecutors say, and told a contact at the police department that "I have an interest in her father for a number of reasons."


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