A former high-ranking FBI official who oversaw investigations into Russian oligarchs has been accused of later trying to get sanctions lifted on a Kremlin-linked billionaire and receiving money from him to investigate a rival.
Charles McGonigal, who headed the bureau’s counterintelligence section in New York City from 2016 to 2018, was arrested at the city’s JFK airport on Saturday after returning from the Middle East.
Charles McGonigal, who was the head of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York City office from 2016 to 2018, was held at JFK airport on Saturday. He has been charged with allegedly receiving concealed payments from Rusal founder Oleg Deripaska and taking cash from an ex-Albanian spy.
Most of the charges McGonigal faces relate to alleged activity that took place after he retired from the FBI in 2018.
But he is also accused of taking $225,000 (£182,000) in cash while still working as a special agent from someone who had worked for a foreign intelligence service.
From August 2017 until his retirement in September 2018, McGonigal allegedly concealed from the bureau his relationship with the ex-Albanian intelligence officer.
He allegedly received cash from the person for his own financial benefit – hiding the payment from the FBI – and travelled abroad with them, but the indictment does not characterise the payment to McGonigal as a bribe.
“Mr McGonigal betrayed his solemn oath to the United States in exchange for personal gain and at the expense of our national security,” said FBI assistant director in charge, Donald Alway.
