A former top FBI official was arrested in the United States on Saturday in connection with his alleged dealings with foreign nationals, including Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Justice Department said on Monday, AFP reported.

Charles McGonigal, 54, headed the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s New York office until his retirement in 2018, according to a statement from the agency.

He was arrested this weekend in New York City and has been charged criminally in two separate cases.

Federal justice in New York accuses him of working for the founder of the aluminum giant Rusal, although the latter has been under US sanctions since 2018, which prohibit him from any commercial relations with Americans.

Charles McGonigal, who was involved in the investigation of Russian oligarchs while working for the FBI, is suspected of trying in 2019 – unsuccessfully – to get sanctions lifted from Deripaska, and then in 2021 in the investigation of one of his competitors.

According to the indictment, he received money through front companies and conducted business through an intermediary.

He is accused of violating sanctions and money laundering, and faces 20 years in prison.

McGonigal is scheduled to appear before a judge on Monday along with an alleged accomplice, a former Russian diplomat.

In addition, Charles McGonigal is facing federal charges in Washington for concealing payments made in connection with his activities in Eastern Europe while he was still with the FBI.

According to the indictment, he received $225,000 in cash from a naturalized American, a former Albanian intelligence officer, whom he accompanied on business trips to Albania and Kosovo.

She had a relationship with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, which she never made public, thus violating her obligations.