A former FBI agent concealed the $225,000 he received from an intelligence agent in Albania

Arrested former senior agent of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charles McGonigal, pleaded guilty to concealing the $225,000 he received in cash while working for the FBI from a former intelligence officer of Albania.

McGonigal was the head of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division in New York from 2016 to 2018, when he retired.

According to the agreement with the prosecutor, he pleaded guilty to the charge of concealment of material facts, for which the maximum penalty of five years in prison is provided. The verdict should be pronounced in Washington on February 16, 2024.

The indictment states that it is a conflict between his duties at the FBI and his personal financial interest, and that he had to report that he received that money, even though it is not characterized as a bribe according to the indictment.

Such qualification is a consequence of McGonigal’s agreement with the prosecutor that the $225,000 he did not report was a “loan” during his trip to Europe where he was in contact with the then prime minister of Albania. McGonigal did not return the money he says he borrowed, he said. prosecutor.

McGonigal said in court that he borrowed the money to start a security consulting business after retiring from the FBI and apologized to the agency for doing so.

In another case in New York, McGonigal pleaded guilty in August to working for a Russian oligarch who was under US sanctions.

McGonigal took $17,000 from Oleg Deripaska to help gather compromising information about another Russian oligarch who was Deripaska’s business competitor and to help Deripaska escape U.S. sanctions that he has been under since 2018 over ties to Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea. The verdict against the former agent is expected in December. ;