Ex-FBI Spy Catcher Faces 5 Years in Prison After Admitting He Worked for ‘Putin’s Favorite Industrialist’

A former high-level FBI agent faces five years in prison after pleading guilty Tuesday to illegally working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch who's been called President Vladimir Putin's "favorite industrialist."

Charles McGonigal, the retired head of the bureau’s counterintelligence division in New York, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and to commit money laundering.

McGonigal, 55, is one of the highest-ranking FBI officials ever convicted of a crime.

He would have faced up to 80 years in federal prison if convicted of the four counts on which he was indicted earlier this year.

Instead, McGonigal will be sentenced to no more than five years under terms of a plea deal with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams.

McGonigal was arrested in January on charges he conspired to evade U.S. sanctions while secretly working for billionaire metals tycoon Oleg Deripaska in 2021.

In court Tuesday, McGonigal admitted that he was secretly paid by Deripaska, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, to "collect open source derogatory information" about rival oligarch Vladimir Potanin.

McGonigal said he understood the work was being to done to "get Potanin on the U.S. sanctions list."

"I am deeply remorseful for it," McGonigal told Manhattan federal Judge Judge Jennifer Rearden.

"I appear before you in this court to take full responsibility. I never intended to hurt the United States, the FBI and my own family and friends."

Potanin, 62, was sanctioned by the U.S. in December along with Russia's Rosbank, which he bought from Paris-based Societe General shortly after Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

He owns a majority share of Nornickel, the world's largest producer of palladium and refined nicked, and is estimated by Forbes to be worth nearly $24 billion.

Deripaska — whose relatively paltry, $2.5 billion fortune came from taking over a Siberian aluminum smelting plant — has been described by the Guardian as "Putin’s favorite industrialist."

The British government sanctioned Deripaska after the invasion of Ukraine, saying he "is or has been involved in obtaining benefit from or supporting the government of Russia."

McGonigal and a co-defendant, translator Sergey Shestakov, allegedly covered up their work for Deripaska through the use of shell companies, a forged document and other means.

McGonigal knew Deripaska had been sanctioned by the U.S. because he'd previously received classified information about the Russian while working for the FBI, authorities said.

McGonigal and Shestakov also tried to get Deripaska lifted from the U.S. sanctions list in 2019, according to the indictment.

McGonigal, who's free on a $500,000 bond, was initially charged with four counts that included conspiring to violate and evade U.S. sanctions in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and money laundering.

In addition to the Manhattan case, McGonigal also faces charges in Washington, D.C., federal court for allegedly accepting $225,000 from an Albanian government official.

Following Tuesday's court session, defense lawyer Seth DuCharme said McGonigal was "open to a fair resolution" in that case, too, but hadn't received an offer from prosecutors, according to a video clip posted by the Inner City Press on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Last year, Deripaska, 52, was indicted in Manhattan federal court for allegedly violating the sanctions that were imposed on him in 2018 over his connections to Putin's regime.