(Bloomberg) -- A New York man was charged with illegally acting as a foreign agent seeking non-public U.S. law enforcement information on critics of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

Pierre Girgis, 39, of Manhattan, was arrested by federal agents on Thursday and charged with two counts related to acting as an agent of a foreign country without notifying the Justice Department, as required by U.S. law. 

Manhattan federal prosecutors said Girgis, a dual U.S-Egyptian citizen, “operated at the direction and control of multiple employees of the Egyptian government” to further the country’s interests in the United States. The activity allegedly dated back to 2014, when El-Sisi, a former Egyptian general, intelligence official and politician became the country’s president.

Girgis allegedly tracked and obtained information about political opponents of El-Sisi, and took direction from Egyptian government officials via encrypted text messages, according to a copy of the indictment unsealed Thursday. On three occasions in 2017, Girgis allegedly provided information about El-Sisi critics to a local U.S. law enforcement officer, and also set up and attended a meeting between U.S. and Egyptian law enforcement officials in 2019, prosecutors said. 

Attorney information for Girgis was not immediately available.    

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