A former FBI agent was charged Monday with violating US sanctions against Russia. while working for Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, the Justice Department reported. charles mcgonigal54 years old, headed the counterintelligence unit of the federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in New York before retiring in 2018, the agency said in a statement.
He was arrested this weekend in New York and is being prosecuted in two cases. New York Federal Court accuses him of having worked for the founder of aluminum giant Rusalwho since 2018 has been the target of US sanctions that bar him from doing business with the Americans because of his ties to the Russian government, which four years earlier ordered the annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea.
Charles McGonigal investigated Russian oligarchs when he was with the FBI. It is suspected that in 2019 he tried in vain to have the sanctions against Deripaska canceled, and that he would have carried out, in 2021, investigations into one of his rivals. According to the indictment, he collected money through front companies and did business through an intermediary.
He is accused of having violated sanctions against Russia and of money laundering. He is exposed to 20 years in prison. He will appear before a judge Monday along with an alleged accomplice, a former Russian diplomat who became a naturalized American and became a sworn translator for the judicial system.
In addition, the federal court accuses Charles McGonigal in Washington of having concealed, while he was still working for the FBI, payments in connection with his activities in Eastern Europe.
According to the indictment, he collected $225,000 in cash from a former agent of the Albanian secret services, naturalized American, whom he accompanied on business trips to Albania and Kosovo.
He also concealed that he was in contact with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, thus violating his obligations. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
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