A Moscow police chief is accused of accepting bribes. The police chief would make a one-off transaction of hundreds bitcoin (BTC) received from a group of Russian hackers; the exact group of hackers he was assigned to confiscate the assets of.
Many millions in bitcoin
The Russian newspaper Compelling calls it “one of the biggest Russian corruption criminal cases in recent years.” The suspect Marat Tambiev, head of the criminal investigation department, is accused of accepting a bribe of a whopping 1,032 bitcoin worth nearly $28 million. The police have frozen part of his fortune, the rest will follow. The members of the hacker group, who bribed the agent, will receive suspended prison sentences of 2.5 to 3.5 years.
The newspaper reports that the court of Nikulinsky in Moscow will examine the case today. Attorney General Anatoly Razinkin is suing the police chief for corruption and bribery and wants the remaining assets confiscated as soon as possible. The policeman received the bribe from the hacker group Infraud Organization Mark. Tambiev was investigating the hacker group because they were suspected of tax evasion.
Russian record
According to the newspaper, the amount of the bribe is a Russian record. With a total value of 1.6 billion Russian rubles, it exceeds any previously confiscated bribe. One of the few who comes close is Dmitry Zakharchenko. He was once found guilty of accepting bribes totaling 1.4 billion rubles. However, this was over a period of 10 years and not all at once as was the case here.
According to the newspaper, the police came across the bizarre amount of bitcoins when they carried out a house search. During the house search, the agents found an Apple Macbook Pro. Months later, the Macbook was, ironically enough, hacked and they stumbled upon the more than 1,000 bitcoins. The bitcoins were kept in a folder called ‘pension’. The police officer appeared to be planning to withhold the bitcoins to save for the future. At the time of the discovery, the policeman’s family lived on one salary and had no expensive properties and little savings.
Tambiev pleads not guilty
The now former police officer pleads not guilty, according to the newspaper. The confiscated bitcoins were transferred to a crypto wallet owned by the government. The key of which is appended to the evidence. Tambiev himself sued the department where he worked. He would have been fired before the judge found him guilty.
In that lawsuit, he reclaimed his position and requested that his time off as is characterized as ‘forced absenteeism’. The lawsuit has already been dismissed, because his dismissal is considered lawful. He would have broken his sworn oath as an agent.