Former FBI official pleads guilty to concealing foreign payments

A retired FBI agent pleaded guilty on Friday to charges that he concealed foreign payments of over $225,000 from an Albanian official when he was leading the bureau’s counterintelligence operations in Europe, the Justice Department (DOJ) announced.

Prosecutors allege Charles McGonigal, who was in charge of the FBI counterintelligence division in New York, accepted the money from a former Albanian intelligence official and businessman. The man later served as a witness in one of his foreign lobbying cases.

He accepted the funds from late 2017 until his retirement in late 2018, according to the DOJ statement. McGonigal also allegedly traveled with the individual abroad and met with foreign nationals.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years and sentencing is scheduled for February.

The case is being handled by the FBI offices in Los Angeles and Washington.

McGonigal also pleaded guilty last month to violating Russian sanctions by accepting bribes from a Russian oligarch.

The former FBI official accepted over $17,000 in bribes from oligarch Oleg Deripaska in exchange for the former official investigating one of Deripaska’s business rivals, according to the DOJ.

That separate charge also carries a maximum five year term. McGonigal will face sentencing for the first case in December.