Listen to the news

A former senior FBI official who has already been charged with links to a Russian oligarch has pleaded guilty to withholding a cash payment from an Albanian intelligence officer.

According to the indictment, Charles McGonigal, a former FBI special agent in charge of the bureau's counterintelligence unit in New York from 2016 to 2018, received and failed to declare $225,000 in cash from an Albanian intelligence officer while on active duty.

Kiev's No. 1 military intelligence officer: Russia will have big problems

The defendant said the amount was a loan, and the prosecution also did not characterize McGonigal's payment as a bribe, but federal prosecutors say he was required to declare it because it created a conflict of interest between his official duties and his private financial interests.

The Associated Press quoted prosecutors as saying the borrowed money was not paid to the Albanian intelligence officer.

Charles McGonigal's name has made headlines in another case over ties to sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018 over its occupation of Crimea.

United States

Albania

FBI

detective