A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence agent has been charged with aiding an oligarch in violation of US sanctions, it was learned Monday.
This is Charles McGonigal, who was specifically in charge of the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York.
McGonigal is accused of working with a former Soviet diplomat who became an interpreter for Russian energy magnate Oleg Deripaska.
The man was charged separately in federal court in Washington for concealing $225,000 in payments he received from an outside source with whom he traveled to Europe.
The suspect was required to report contacts with foreign officials to the FBI, but prosecutors allege he concealed this from his employer while conducting business and traveling abroad, creating a conflict of interest with his law enforcement duties.
McGonigal, 54, oversaw investigations into Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska, before retiring in 2018.
The former federal agent and interpreter – Sergey Shestakov, 69 – was arrested Saturday and is expected to appear in a court in Manhattan later Monday.
They are charged with violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, conspiracy to commit money laundering and money laundering. Shestakov is also accused of making false statements to the FBI.
The US Treasury Department added Deripaska to its sanctions list in 2018 for alleged dealings with the Russian government and the Russian energy sector.
The New York indictment alleges that in 2018 McGonigal was introduced by Shesktaov to a former Soviet diplomat who worked as an agent for Deripaska.
That person is not identified in court documents, but the Justice Department says he was treated “like a Russian intelligence officer” according to press descriptions.
According to the indictment, Shesktaov asked McGonigal to get Deripaska’s daughter an internship with the New York Police Department.
McGonigal agreed, prosecutors said, telling a police source that he was “interested in her father for several reasons.”
Source: DN
