A former top counterintelligence official at the FBI’s New York field office has been arrested and charged with violating U.S. sanctions on Russia and money laundering, the Justice Department said Monday.
Charles McGonigal, 54, was accused in a five-count indictment of working for Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018. Sergey Shestakov, a former Russian diplomat turned U.S. citizen who worked as an interpreter for federal courts and prosecutors, was also charged in the scheme.
McGonigal, while serving as chief of the cybercrimes section at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., was one of the first bureau officials to learn of allegations that George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser for former President Donald Trump, boasted that he knew Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, launching the investigation into alleged Russian election interference known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane.
In a separate case, McGonigal is also facing federal charges in the District of Columbia related to at least $225,000 in cash he allegedly received from a person with business interests in Europe and who worked for a foreign intelligence service.
McGonigal and Shestakov both were arrested Saturday. The indictment is a rare move by federal prosecutors to bring charges against a former senior FBI official before a federal grand jury.