Lured by Promises of Wealth, F.B.I. Agent Was Drawn Into Fraud Scheme, Prosecutors Say As he approached retirement this year, an F.B.I. agent in New York told a friend in an e-mail that his decades of work in law enforcement were finally about to pay off. "I've made us all stinking rich!!!" the agent wrote, telling the friend to start planning how to spend a $1 million gift that would be arriving soon. For 30 years I've sacrificed to get to this point. But his exit strategy, according to federal prosecutors, included his participation in a multimillion-dollar international scheme that involved the lieutenant colonel in charge of the United States Army's Special Forces operations in Afghanistan and a Boston-based defense contractor. The prosecutors say that the contractor, Michael Taylor, a former member of an Army Special Forces team, in 2007 won a contract eventually worth $54 million to train Afghan commandos. He did so with secret help from Lt. Col. David Young, who has since retired from the Army but at the time was in charge of Special Forces operations in the country, and then made kickback payments to the colonel, according to court records. When Mr. Taylor, who lives in Boston, learned that federal authorities were looking into the Afghan contract, he turned to Robert Lustyik, the agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York, enticing the career agent with the promise of wealth in exchange for his help quashing the investigation, prosecutors said. Mr. Taylor, 51, and Mr. Young, 49, of Hernando Beach, Fla., were indicted in August in Utah, where prosecutors say they used a bank to structure money transfers. They and a third man, Christopher Harris, 48, another former member of the Special Forces who was then working as a civilian contractor in Afghanistan, split $20 million from the contract, according to prosecutors. On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Lustyik, 50, was arrested at his home in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County. He worked in sensitive counterintelligence operations. At his arraignment on Monday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, his lawyer, Raymond Mansolillo, said prosecutors had misinterpreted a legitimate relationship to exchange valuable intelligence as a corrupt enterprise. "They take that information and elaborate on it wildly," Mr. Mansolillo said in court. It's like something out of a novel. An affidavit filed in Mr. Taylor's case refers to an F.B.I. agent as "person one," who Mr. Mansolillo said is Mr. Lustyik. The affidavit said Mr. Taylor certainly got wind of the continuing investigation of the Afghan contract by Sept. 8, 2011, when the federal government seized $5 million from a bank account of Mr. Taylor's company that was traceable to the Afghan contract fraud. Mr. Taylor had already begun cultivating Mr. Lustyik to help, according to prosecutors. In June 2011, prosecutors say, they began working on business deals that Mr. Lustyik kept secret from the bureau. According to prosecutors, Mr. Taylor gave or promised Mr. Lustyik $200,000 in cash, and promised shares in several foreign enterprises, including a contract for security and surveillance equipment to the United Arab Emirates expected to be worth more than $100 million. In one of many e-mails obtained by prosecutors, Mr. Taylor promised to "make you guys more money than you can believe" as long as investigators do not conclude "I'm a bad guy and put me in jail." Mr. Lustyik promised Mr. Taylor he would get the Utah investigation shut down, saying in e-mails that he would "blow the doors off this thing" and "crush the Utah case agent." The affidavit says Mr. Lustyik tried to create an internal F.B.I. record that would identify Mr. Taylor as a confidential source. He also created a dossier of staged interviews to show his bosses that Mr. Taylor was too valuable to indict. "I will not stop in my attempt to sway this your way," Mr. Lustyik wrote to Mr. Taylor. In March, Mr. Taylor sent Mr. Lustyik an e-mail saying that very soon none of them would ever have to worry about money again. "From your lips to God's ears," Mr. Lustyik responded. Although I can retire in 2 months I believe it is in our best interests if I hang on until we have the Utah situation handled. Mr. Taylor and Mr. Young face bribery, wire fraud and other charges. Mr. Young is free on a $7,500 bond. Both men have denied guilt. Under a separate indictment, Mr. Taylor faces additional charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy related to his contact with Mr. Lustyik. He is being held without bail at a federal prison in Utah on those charges. Mr. Lustyik is charged with obstruction of justice, conspiracy and wire fraud. In court on Monday, a prosecutor, Maria Lerner, asked the judge to hold Mr. Lustyik without bail. She said the Justice Department recently learned that Mr. Lustyik also "attempted to sell law enforcement information to the target of a murder-for-hire investigation." The judge, Frank Maas, ordered Mr. Lustyik released on a $2 million bond. He must appear in Utah on Tuesday and return to New York to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device. Nate Schweber contributed reporting.