A former top federal police official was arrested in the United States on Saturday for his troubled dealings with foreign actors, including Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Justice Department said Monday.
Charles McGonigal, 54, headed the counterterrorism unit for the FBI’s New York office before retiring in 2018, according to a ministry statement. Arrested this weekend in New York, he is being prosecuted in two separate cases.
The federal court in New York accuses him of having worked for the founder of the aluminum giant Rusal, although the latter has been in the crosshairs since 2018 of US sanctions that prohibit any commercial relationship with Americans.
He faces 20 years in prison.
Charles McGonigal, who had investigated Russian oligarchs when he was in the FBI, is suspected of having tried in 2019 -unsuccessfully- to have the sanctions against Oleg Deripaska canceled, and after having carried out, in 2021, investigations into one of his rivals. .
According to the indictment, he was paid through front companies and did business through an intermediary.
Accused of violation of sanctions and money laundering, he faces 20 years in prison. He is due to appear before a judge Monday with an alleged accomplice, a former Russian diplomat who became a naturalized American and became a sworn translator for the court system.
Suspicious links with Eastern European countries
In addition, Charles McGonigal is being prosecuted in federal court in Washington for having concealed, while still with the FBI, payments made in connection with his activities in Eastern Europe.
According to the indictment, he received in particular $225,000 in cash from a former Albanian secret service agent, a naturalized American, whom he accompanied on business trips to Albania and Kosovo.
He had established a relationship with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, which he never made public, in violation of his obligations.
Source: BFM TV
