According to a CIA report, Russia has funded political parties in Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to destabilize the countries. The report was cited by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama during a parliamentary debate prompted by the “McGonigal affair.” Charles McGonigal, a former high FBI counterintelligence agent, has been accused in the US of withholding key details about his 2017 trip to Albania with a former Albanian intelligence officer who allegedly gave him over $225,000. The opposition in Albania has accused Rama of corruption in connection with the affair. Rama denied these claims, stating that if he had information that the Democratic Party (in opposition) was receiving Russian money, he would give it to partner organizations and the FBI, as Russia financed the country’s largest opposition to overthrow the government.
McGonigal, 54, has been charged with money laundering and violating US sanctions against Russia in a 23 January sealed indictment in New York, as well as separately with making false statements in a nine-count indictment unsealed in Washington. According to prosecutors, while still chief of counterintelligence in New York, McGonigal took $225,000 in cash from an individual who had business interests in Europe and was employed by a foreign intelligence agency.
The prosecutors also said that the individual was an American citizen who lived in New Jersey and had worked for the Albanian intelligence agency decades ago. McGonigal had travelled abroad with the individual, who allegedly introduced him to the premier of Albania and a Kosovan politician. He didn’t file required reports detailing his foreign travel and contacts with foreign nationals, according to the indictment. The individual also gave McGonigal $80,000 in cash while sitting in a car outside a Manhattan restaurant in October 2017, the government said. He gave McGonigal cash twice more that year, according to the government.
