The international press has echoed yesterday’s arrest of former senior FBI counterintelligence officer Charles McGonigal.
McGonigal was charged with helping a Russian oligarch in violation of US sanctions.
He is accused of collaborating with a former Soviet diplomat who worked as a translator for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. Also, other charges have been brought against him, as a result of his acceptance of a large sum of money from a former officer of the Security Services of another country (in this case Albania)
The Department of Justice cites the Voice of America as saying that Mr. McGonigel also withheld from the FBI details of a trip he made to Albania in 2017, together with a former official of the Albanian intelligence services, who had given him the sum of $225,000 US dollars.
Prosecutors also say that he did not give the name of the person who accompanied him during the trip, and he did not inform that the stay was provided to him for free.
The Department of Justice also says that after his arrival to Albania, he met with the Albanian prime minister [Edi Rama] and discouraged him from granting licenses to Russian shell companies looking to explore oil in the country.
The former FBI agent should have reported his contacts with foreign officials to the FBI, but instead, prosecutors say that he concealed them from his employer while continuing to take business and international trips that put him in a conflict of interest with his duties as a law enforcement officer.
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