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This week we tell the story of a top FBI agent, Charles McGonigal, and his ties with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Putin and the former employer of Paul Manafort, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair. If you like our content, please become a patron to get all of our episodes ad free. ¹

McGonigal took $225,000 in secret cash payments from someone who had served as an Albanian intelligence officer. McGonigal concealed that relationship, as well as his meetings with Sergey Shestakov, from the Bureau. FBI’s New York Chief of Counterintelligence also had an extramarital affair with a woman named Allison Guerriero, who later became Rudy Giuliani’s house guest and biggest supporter. The events are reminiscent of the Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen spy cases. ²

During his time with the FBI, McGonigal led the WikiLeaks investigation into Chelsea Manning, and oversaw the search for a Chinese mole inside the CIA.

McGonigal was arrested In January 2023 at Kennedy International Airport. Shestakov was arrested at his US home in a simultaneous operation. Both men are accused of receiving payments through shell companies and forging signatures to conceal the fact that Deripaska was paying them. [^3]

They have both been charged with money laundering charges, in addition to charges for violating sanctions. Each of these counts carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. ³