Putin Regime May Have Infiltrated The FBI

(PatriotWise.com) – Charles McGonigal, the former special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI’s New York field office, has been arrested over his ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire under US sanctions who was criminally charged last year for violating the sanctions.

McGonigal was arrested on January 21 at JFK airport after returning on a flight from Sri Lanka, making him one of the highest-ranking former FBI officials ever charged with a crime, according to ABC News.

McGonigal, who retired from the FBI in 2018, appeared in a Manhattan federal court last Monday where he pleaded not guilty to the four-count indictment. The judge ordered him released on a $500,000 personal recognizance bond that included restrictions on travel and prohibitions on contacting anyone associated with the case.

The 54-year-old former fed is charged with violating US sanctions by attempting to get Deripaska removed from the sanctions list.

McGonigal was charged along with a court interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, who also worked for the billionaire Deripaska.

According to the Justice Department, McGonigal and Shestakov allegedly agreed in 2021 to investigate a rival Russian oligarch in exchange for payments from Deripaska. The pair are accused of receiving payments through shell companies and forging signatures to hide the fact that the money came from Deripaska.

McGonigal and Shestakov also face charges of money laundering. Each of the four counts carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Last Monday, the US Attorney’s Office in Washington DC unsealed a separate indictment against McGonigal on charges that he received $225,000 cash for an individual he knew was an employee of a foreign intelligence service.

According to the nine-count indictment, between August 2017 and September 2018, before he retired from the FBI, McGonigal concealed his relationship with the unidentified former foreign intelligence officer as he was traveling abroad with this person to meet foreign nationals.

The unnamed foreign intel officer, who is described as an Albanian national who worked for a Chinese energy conglomerate, later “served as an FBI source in a criminal investigation involving foreign political lobbying” in which McGonigal served in a supervisory role, according to the indictment.

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