Former FBI agent in New York for counterintelligence arrested along with former Russian diplomat charged with Violating US sanctions against Russia in an attempt to help oligarch Oleg Deripaska get off the sanctions list after he left the FBI, federal prosecutor said Monday.
Apart from former agent Charles McGonigal billed on monday A federal court in Washington, DC, in connection with the receipt of $225,000 in cash from a person with European business interests who was an employee of an Albanian foreign intelligence service while working for the FBI. .
The other person later became a source for the FBI in a criminal investigation into foreign political lobbying overseen by McGonigal, officials said.
McGonigal be charged In that case, he made false statements and other accusations, alleging that he failed to disclose, as required, that he had met with the Albanian Prime Minister and Kosovar politicians during his trip to Albania and Kosovo in October 2017. It is said
“Mr. McGonigal has betrayed his solemn oath to the United States by sacrificing U.S. national security in exchange for personal gain,” said FBI Deputy Director Donald Alway.
In the Deripaska case, McGonigal, 54, and Sergey Shestakov, 69, were charged with violating Russian sanctions, in addition to money laundering, on five counts indicted in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. .
Shestakov is a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who most recently worked as an interpreter for federal courts and prosecutors in Brooklyn. He has US citizenship.
A Morris, Connecticut resident has also been charged with lying to the FBI during interrogations by covering up the nature of his relationship with a Deripaska employee who is rumored to be a Russian spy. I’m here.
The alleged criminal activity on behalf of Deripaska began a year after McGonigal, a New York City resident, retired from the FBI in 2018 after 22 years of service.
But before he retired, he used his law enforcement ties to get an internship with the New York City Police Department for the college-aged daughter of a Deripaska employee, according to the indictment.
While at the FBI, McGonigal had previously investigated Deripaska, who had made a fortune in the Russian aluminum industry. In October 2021, FBI agents raided New York and Washington properties related to Deripaska.
McGonigal was arrested Saturday night at JFK International Airport in Queens, New York on a flight from the Middle East.
McGonigal and Shestakov, 69, who were also arrested Saturday night, were scheduled to appear in court in Manhattan late Monday.
McGonigal pleaded not guilty and was released on a personal endorsement bond of $500,000.
The charges against him and Shestakov carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted. McGonigal faces the same maximum sentence in a Washington criminal case.
According to McGonigal’s LinkedIn profile, he most recently worked as a senior vice president at commercial real estate giant Brookfield Properties. A company spokesperson previously said he left Brookfield in January 2022.
CNBC has reached out to lawyers for McGonigal and Shestakov for comment.
The 21-year indictment against McGonigal says that in 2021 he and Shestakov agreed, and did, to investigate Deripaska’s rival Russian oligarchs in exchange for secret payments from Deripaska. . Those payments allegedly violated sanctions that the United States imposed on him in 2018, according to the indictment.
McGonigal, who was in charge of the FBI’s counterintelligence operations in New York from 2016 to 2018, received then-classified information that Deripaska was added to the list of sanctioned oligarchs, and that his alleged actions violated sanctions. These sanctions were imposed as a result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska are wielding malicious influence globally on behalf of the Kremlin, and have committed bribery, extortion and violence,” FBI Deputy Director Michael Driscoll said in a statement. are involved,” he said.
According to the indictment, McGonigal was still working for the FBI in 2018 when Shestakov introduced him via email to a Deripaska employee who was rumored to be a Russian intelligence agent in media reports. The Deripaska employee, identified as “Agent-1” in the indictment, was also a former Soviet and Russian diplomat.
According to the indictment, Shestakov asked McGonigal to help an employee’s daughter get an internship with the New York Police Department in the field of “counter-terrorism, intelligence gathering, and international liaison.”
According to the indictment, McGonigal agreed to cooperate and told the FBI supervisor who worked for him that he wanted to hire Deripaska employees.
“As a result of McGonigal’s efforts, Agent-1’s daughter received VIP treatment from the NYPD,” the indictment states.
“The NYPD sergeant assigned to report to Agent-1’s daughter subsequently reported the incident to the NYPD and the FBI. This is because, among other reasons, Agent-1’s daughter , for allegedly having an unusually close relationship with the “FBI agent” who gave them access to classified information. The FBI is on file, but it’s unusual for college students to receive such special treatment from the NYPD and the FBI.”
In 2019, after McGonigal retired, Shestakov and he referred the woman’s father to an international law firm in Manhattan, where Deripaska employees tried to keep the firm in order to lift sanctions against the oligarchs. .
During these negotiations, McGonigal traveled to London and Vienna and met with Deripaska and others at the oligarch’s mansion, the indictment alleges.
In electronic correspondence between employees of McGonigal, Shestakov and Deripaska, they referred to the oligarch not by his last name, but instead using terms such as “individual”, “Vienna friend” and “Vienna client”.
According to the indictment, Deripaska ultimately hired a law firm for the job of trying to lift the sanctions, allocating $175,000 a month and $25,000 to “certain other professionals.”
The law firm hired McGonigal as a consultant and investigator for Deripaska’s work, the indictment documents said. McGonigal asked the company to compensate him by transferring $25,000 to a company owned by Shestakov, the indictment says.
The law firm’s name was not specified in the indictment.
However, on November 29, 2021, one week after the FBI interrogation, Shestakov registration statement He told the Justice Department that he was acting on behalf of foreigners in the United States.
The person Shestakov identified was Evgeny Fokine, the foreign relations manager of the EN+ group, a company founded by Deripaska, he said.
Fokine “will report to Lord Barker[the chairman of the company’s board of directors]and possibly Mr. Deripaska,” Shestakov said in the filing. forensic news December 2021, after the document was highlighted in a tweet by journalist Wendy Siegelman earlier that month.
“Mr. Fokine contacted me for professional assistance on behalf of himself and/or his company, and I, with the help of security expert Charles F. McGonigal, provided an ad hoc I tried to promote those demands at the base,” Shestakov wrote.
The statement also referred to Fokine’s request as Shestakov ” [McGonigal] Cobre and Kim’s Holding Law Firm.”
“At Mr. Fokine’s request, I contacted Mr. McGonigal and some relationship has resulted.
We have reached Spectrum Risk Solutions, which I believe is still in progress,” Shestakov wrote.
Spokespeople for Cobre and Kim did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Deripaska’s law firm’s operations were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the oligarchs stopped paying lawyers around March 2020, according to the indictment, the indictment says.
However, in the spring of 2021, Agent-1 will begin negotiations with McGonigal and Shestakov to pursue Deripaska under U.S. sanctions “on unlawful and unlawful matters” without the involvement of a law firm. work directly.
That project involved investigating another oligarch and his interest in a large Russian corporation that Deripaska and other oligarchs were fighting for control, the indictment says.
In August 2021, the trio announced that a Cyprus-based company would pay a New Jersey-based company over $51,000 upon execution of controls, and an additional $51,000 for “business intelligence services, analytics, and research.” You have created and executed a contract that requires you to pay $41,790 per month. ” the indictment alleges.
In fact, according to the indictment, payments were made to McGonigal and Shestakov, neither of whom was named and who signed the contract.
According to the indictment, the New Jersey firm was owned by a friend of McGonigal’s who arranged for McGonigal’s participation in the business while he was still serving as a special agent for counterintelligence at the FBI’s New York branch. According to the indictment, McGonigal had a company email account and cell phone under a false name to cover up his work.
According to the indictment, while investigating a second oligarch, McGonigal hired a subcontractor to assist in the investigation and did not disclose the client’s name, Deripaska. According to the indictment, one of these subcontractors later discovered so-called dark web files by a third party that could reveal hidden U.S. assets owned by a second oligarch. He informed McGonigal.
In late November 2021, McGonigal and Shestakov negotiated with Deripaska employees to obtain funding to purchase Dark Web files from oligarchs, the indictment says.
“This activity largely or completely ceased on or about November 21, 2021, when the defendant’s personal electronic devices were seized by FBI special agents acting pursuant to a court-issued search warrant. did,” the indictment said.
According to the indictment, Shestakov met with FBI agents at a Manhattan restaurant that same day and “attempted to conceal the nature and depth of his relationship with himself, McGonigal, and Agent 1.”
