Several cases involving citizens of the former USSR were heard in New York federal courts in December. On December 15, in a Brooklyn court, 31-year-old Latvian and Latvian citizen Ivars Auzins, aka Aivars Grauzdins, pleaded guilty in court in Brooklyn. the right to release on bail, which, by the way, he does not insist on.
Auziņš was charged with 6 counts of cyber securities fraud, and, as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Brian Peace said in a press release at the time, “Auzins was running a daring scam, defrauding investors who had invested millions of dollars in a fraudulent cryptocurrency,” while “hiding their data by acting through shell companies on the Internet and social networks.” According to the prosecution, in advertising his enterprises, Auzins made “a number of significant misrepresentations and omissions about products and services,” causing damage to client companies of at least $7 million from November 2017 to July 2019. He confirmed all this last Friday to Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkle, agreeing to receive up to 5 years in prison and pay $497,006 in damages. The charges threatened him with up to 20 years in prison, and Judge Merkle has not yet set a sentencing date.
The day before the Latvian cyber fraudster Auzins, on December 14, 55-year-old American Charles McGonigal, the former head of the counterintelligence department of the New York office of the FBI from 2016 to 2018, was sentenced to 50 months in prison in Manhattan federal court. Almost a year after his arrest, he made a deal with the prosecutor’s office and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate US sanctions against Russia and laundering the money earned from this. In addition to imprisonment, Judge Jennifer Reerden sentenced him to 3 years of post-release supervision, fined him $40,000 and ordered him to return $17,500 in unfounded income. The court found that in 2021, McGonigal agreed to provide services to Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release that McGonigal "failed the trust of his country, which placed him in a high position in the FBI , and prepared for a future in business. After leaving his job, he threatened our national security by providing services to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian rich man who acts as an agent of Vladimir Putin. “Today’s verdict is a reminder that anyone who violates U.S. sanctions, especially those in whom this country has placed its trust, will face severe punishment.”
I wouldn’t call the sentence for the former FBI counterintelligence agent so severe, but that’s obviously how the prosecutor’s office assessed his testimony. McGonigal was arrested on January 23 this year at New York's Kennedy Airport, where he returned from Sri Lanka. On the same day, FBI agents arrested in Connecticut his accomplice, 69-year-old Russian and naturalized US citizen Sergei Shestakov, who worked for us as a court and government translator, formerly managed the office of the USSR representative to the UN Alexander Bogomolov, and since 1993 has remained in America and was vice president of the oligarch Gusinsky-owned RTVI television channel with offices in Moscow and New York. After the arrests, both were accused of violating the sanctions regime against Russia and money laundering, after which they were released on bail - Shestakov for 200 thousand dollars, and McGonigal for half a million. The sentence in New York did not end his ordeal; in the federal court for the District of Columbia in Washington, he is accused of concealing payments in the amount of $225,000 received from a former Albanian intelligence officer, and other illegal acts qualified as giving false testimony and falsification of documents, to which McGonigal also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, scheduled for February 2024.
Auziņš was charged with 6 counts of cyber securities fraud, and, as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Brian Peace said in a press release at the time, “Auzins was running a daring scam, defrauding investors who had invested millions of dollars in a fraudulent cryptocurrency,” while “hiding their data by acting through shell companies on the Internet and social networks.” According to the prosecution, in advertising his enterprises, Auzins made “a number of significant misrepresentations and omissions about products and services,” causing damage to client companies of at least $7 million from November 2017 to July 2019. He confirmed all this last Friday to Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkle, agreeing to receive up to 5 years in prison and pay $497,006 in damages. The charges threatened him with up to 20 years in prison, and Judge Merkle has not yet set a sentencing date.
The day before the Latvian cyber fraudster Auzins, on December 14, 55-year-old American Charles McGonigal, the former head of the counterintelligence department of the New York office of the FBI from 2016 to 2018, was sentenced to 50 months in prison in Manhattan federal court. Almost a year after his arrest, he made a deal with the prosecutor’s office and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate US sanctions against Russia and laundering the money earned from this. In addition to imprisonment, Judge Jennifer Reerden sentenced him to 3 years of post-release supervision, fined him $40,000 and ordered him to return $17,500 in unfounded income. The court found that in 2021, McGonigal agreed to provide services to Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a press release that McGonigal "failed the trust of his country, which placed him in a high position in the FBI , and prepared for a future in business. After leaving his job, he threatened our national security by providing services to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian rich man who acts as an agent of Vladimir Putin. “Today’s verdict is a reminder that anyone who violates U.S. sanctions, especially those in whom this country has placed its trust, will face severe punishment.”
I wouldn’t call the sentence for the former FBI counterintelligence agent so severe, but that’s obviously how the prosecutor’s office assessed his testimony. McGonigal was arrested on January 23 this year at New York's Kennedy Airport, where he returned from Sri Lanka. On the same day, FBI agents arrested in Connecticut his accomplice, 69-year-old Russian and naturalized US citizen Sergei Shestakov, who worked for us as a court and government translator, formerly managed the office of the USSR representative to the UN Alexander Bogomolov, and since 1993 has remained in America and was vice president of the oligarch Gusinsky-owned RTVI television channel with offices in Moscow and New York. After the arrests, both were accused of violating the sanctions regime against Russia and money laundering, after which they were released on bail - Shestakov for 200 thousand dollars, and McGonigal for half a million. The sentence in New York did not end his ordeal; in the federal court for the District of Columbia in Washington, he is accused of concealing payments in the amount of $225,000 received from a former Albanian intelligence officer, and other illegal acts qualified as giving false testimony and falsification of documents, to which McGonigal also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, scheduled for February 2024.
