Rick Gates has followed in Manafort’s footsteps,

Associate worked in Ukraine, ran firm’s E. Europe business.

Rick Gates followed Paul Manafort to Eastern Europe, Africa, the Trump presidential campaign, and now a federal building where he surrendered Monday to the FBI.

Gates, 45, is a former business associate of Manafort, the ousted chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign who also turned himself in to the FBI on Monday.

The men are charged with money laundering and violations of tax and foreign lobbying laws. They are the first to be charged in a special counsel investigation that has dogged Trump’s first year in office.

Manafort has been charged with laundering more than $18 million to buy properties and services. Gates has been accused of transferring more than $3 million from offshore accounts. Both men are charged with making false statements.

The indictments are the first in the long-running investigation of Trump’s associates and possible ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump has railed against the special counsel investigation. On Monday morning, Trump said in a Twitter post that the charges had nothing to do with the Trump campaign, adding “there is NO COLLUSION!”

Separately, an early foreign policy adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, George Papadopoulos, pleaded guilty Monday to lying to the FBI about a contact with a Russian professor with ties to Kremlin officials, prosecutors said.

Manafort had been under federal investigation on suspicion of violating tax law, laundering money and whether he appropriately disclosed his foreign lobbying work. As Manafort’s business associate, Gates’ name is listed on documents that are linked to companies Manafort’s firm established in Cyprus for payments from politicians and businesspeople in Eastern Europe, according to records reviewed.

When the business partners worked in Ukraine, Gates flew to Moscow for meetings with associates of a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.

Gates and Manafort met years ago when Gates was interning at Manafort’s Washington consulting firm, Black, Manafort, Stone, Kelly. The firm was known for running Republican political campaigns and then lobbying the politicians after they won their elections.

In Washington, Manafort was known for representing dictators and strongmen, such as Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Manafort also represented the Trump Organization to lobby the Treasury Department regarding casino transaction rules.

Gates would later follow Manafort to a new firm, Davis Manafort, which worked on the campaign of Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russia former Ukranian president. This work connected the men with Deripaska, an aluminum magnate and ally of President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

Deripaska has been denied a visa to travel to the United States because of allegations that he is linked to organized crime operations, charges Deripaska has denied.

In 2008, Gates took over the firm’s duties in Eastern Europe.

And this work could be lucrative. Manafort was a multimillionaire with vacation homes in Palm Beach, Fla., and the Hamptons.