Charles McGonigal Wiki

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A former FBI official has been arrested for his ties to a Russian oligarch accused of violating US sanctions.

Charles McGonigal, 54, was previously the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the New York field office.

He was arrested Saturday afternoon after arriving at JFK from a trip to Sri Lanka and retired from the FBI in 2018.

Law enforcement say he has ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire sanctioned by the United States and later accused of raping them last year.

Charles McGonigal, 54, was previously the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the New York field office.

Court interpreter Sergey Shestakov was also charged in connection with the case. He worked with Deripaska.

McGonigal is accused of violating US sanctions by trying to remove Deripaska from the sanctions list.

Charged

He is one of the highest-ranking former FBI officials to be charged with a crime.

Both McGonigal and Shestakov are accused of receiving payments through shell companies and forging signatures in an attempt to keep secret that Deripaska was paying them.

According to the Justice Department, the pair, who worked for the FBI and investigated oligarchs, agreed to investigate a rival oligarch in exchange for payments from Deripaska.