A former high-ranking official of the US Federal Police (FBI) has been sentenced to four years and two months in prison for working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who is subject to Washington sanctions, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) said on Thursday, according to AFP. .

Arrested in January, 55-year-old Charles McGonigal, who headed the counterintelligence unit of the FBI’s New York office until his retirement in 2018, pleaded guilty in August to attempting to violate the US sanctions law and money laundering for Oleg Deripaska.

He was sentenced Thursday to 50 months in prison and a $40,000 fine, the Justice Department said in a statement.

“Charles McGonigal betrayed the country’s trust in him by using his position at the FBI to prepare his future in business,” said Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, as quoted in the text, accusing him of “compromising national security by offering his services to Oleg “. Deripaska, a Russian tycoon who acts as an agent of Vladimir Putin.”

Participating in the investigation of Russian oligarchs, including Oleg Deripaska (founder of the aluminum giant Rusal), Charles McGonigal “began to develop a relationship with Deripaska’s agent in hopes of doing business with him when he retired from the FBI,” the Justice Department said. outside.

“In 2021, he tried to provide him with services in violation of the sanctions imposed in 2018 by the United States against Deripaska,” which prohibit any commercial relations between the Americans and the latter, the statement said.

He is particularly criticized for agreeing to independently investigate a rival Russian oligarch in exchange for secret payments.

“McGonigal hoped to make millions of dollars from his business dealings with Deripaska, but agents of the FBI unit he led were the ones who foiled his plan just a few months later,” the US Department of Justice said.