Former top FBI official accused of taking cash from Putin ally to investigate rival

A former top FBI counter-intelligence official conspired to commit money laundering offences and violated US sanctions by taking secret payments from the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to investigate a rival, federal prosecutors said in an indictment on Monday.

In the Deripaska-connected case, the five-count indictment unsealed in Manhattan was the latest in a string of charges against associates of the oligarch that suggest the US justice department views the matter as going beyond regular sanctions violations.

In the cash payments case, federal prosecutors portrayed McGonigal as seeking to enrich himself and the former foreign service officer, who later served as an FBI source in a criminal investigation involving foreign political lobbying, over which McGonigal had supervisory authority.

McGonigal and Shestakov, a former Soviet diplomat, were aware the arrangement was criminal, the indictment said, because while serving at the FBI, McGonigal received then-classified information that Deripaska would be added to a list of oligarchs subject to sanctions.

The two men were also part of an unsuccessful effort in 2019 to have sanctions against Deripaska lifted, the government said.

Shestakov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who became a US citizen and worked as a court interpreter, was also charged with making false statements to the FBI.

The justice department cited sanctions enacted against Russia in 2014 and 2018, over aggression against Ukraine.

A lawyer for McGonigal, Seth DuCharme, said his client intended to plead not guilty in the Deripaska-connected case when he makes his initial appearance in federal court in Manhattan.

A lawyer for Shestakov, Bennett Epstein, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The charges were announced by the US attorney for the southern district of New York but the investigation also involved attorneys in the justice department counterintelligence section in Washington, a person familiar with the matter said.

Federal prosecutors charged Deripaska in a superseding indictment. A US-based employee, Olga Shikri, was charged with sanctions evasion and destroying evidence. In October, Bonham-Carter was arrested in the UK while two of the five Russian nationals were arrested in Europe.