TIRANA, Jan. 23, 2023 – The ties of the Albanian prime minister to a former senior FBI official recently arrested in the United States have led to calls by the political opposition for a full investigation of any possible Albania-related wrongdoings.
The retired FBI senior official has been arrested on charges of secretly taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from a former Albanian spy and violating U.S. sanctions by secretly working for a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch he once investigated.
The allegations against the former official, Charles F. McGonigal, who was the chief of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office from 2016 to 2018 and was arrested on Saturday, are contained in two separate indictments unsealed in New York and Washington on Monday, according to U.S. media reports.
Among the violations McGonigal is charged with is not fully disclosing his relationship with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama and mixing private and public work, which is in violation of FBI rules.
Albania-related indictment
In a nine-count indictment in Washington tied to the Albania case, McGonigal, 55, is accused of receiving at least $225,000 in cash from a former Albanian intelligence officer in exchange for promoting his business interests, without disclosing his relationship to the bureau. The former Albanian agent businessman is a naturalized U.S. citizen and lives in New Jersey.
The indictment alleges that McGonigal received three separate cash payments from the businessman in 2017 after the two traveled to Albania where McGonigal met with the country’s prime minister, VoA reports.
Opposition calls for investigation
In Albania, the political opposition called for a full investigation both in Albania and the United States, with several opposition officials saying the U.S. indictment showed that political motivation and actions by the Albanian prime minister were directly related to the illicit activities of the arrested U.S. official.
“We will set up a parliamentary investigative commission. We will contact the U.S. Congress to investigate this affair, which hangs like a black cloud in the sky of Albania and beyond,” the main opposition Democratic Party leader, Sali Berisha, said in a press conference.
PM denies wrongdoing
According to the indictment, from September 2017 to March 2018, McGonigal and Prime Minister Rama met four times in Albania and the United States.
Albanian Prime Minister Rama has denied any wrongdoing tied to the affair.
“As he explained before, Prime Minister Edi Rama had a friendly relationship with the FBI official, with whom they met several times, either in Tirana or in New York, but their meetings had nothing to do with what is said in the indictment in question,” a government spokesman told VoA’s Albanian Service.
Unclear where investigation will go
But the opposition sees things differently.
“It’s the most serious Rama government scandal. Not because of the amount of the bribes involved but because of the international implications,” said Genc Pollo, a former opposition MP.
Keida Kostreci, the U.S.-based VoA journalist reporting on the case, told an Albanian television station that it is not clear whether Prime Minister Rama is also being investigated.
“The former [FBI] agent demanded money from the person who facilitated the contact with Prime Minister Rama and this is a violation,” Kostreci said.
