By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Michael McGarrity recently served as the first director of the FBI’s Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, which is tasked with helping save U.S. nationals held hostage abroad.
Now, FBI Director James Comey has appointed him special agent in charge of the Criminal Division for the FBI’s New York Field Office
McGarrity joined the FBI in 1996 and began his career in the New York Field Office, where he investigated violent gangs, Colombian drug trafficking organizations, and international money laundering networks, according to a press release. After Sept. 11, 2001, he transferred to the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and investigated international terrorism matters.
McGarrity has held leadership positions as the FBI detailee assigned to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, as the FBI’s deputy on-scene commander in Afghanistan, as the supervisor of the FBI’s extraterritorial investigation squad in the Washington Field Office, as the director for Counterterrorism on the White House National Security Staff and as the legal attaché in Switzerland, the press release said.
Before joining the FBI, he was an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office.