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Colonel Zakharchenko's record broken in absentia
Ex-colleagues of an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are being sought for a bribe of 5 billion rubles
As it became known to Kommersant, the record for the amount of bribes set in the Ministry of Internal Affairs by ex-Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko has been broken more than three times. Georgy Satyukov, an employee of one of the most secret divisions of the ministry, the Bureau of Special Technical Measures (BSTM), was accused of receiving illegal rewards from the administrator of a cryptocurrency exchange totaling almost 5 billion rubles. However, unlike Mr. Zakharchenko, who is serving a 16-year sentence, the new defendant and his ex-colleague, who acted as an intermediary, managed to escape abroad and were arrested only in absentia. According to one version, the fugitives may be in Dubai, where one of them has apartments in the eight-hundred-meter Burj Khalifa tower.
Former head of the 3rd division of the 4th Division (for combating crimes in the credit and financial sphere committed using information technologies) of the Department for Combating Crimes in the field of information and Telecommunications Technologies ("K") of the BSTM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Georgy Satyukov is accused of taking bribes on a particularly large scale (Part 6 of art. 290 of the Criminal Code), and his ex-colleague Dmitry Sokolov - in mediation in this (Article 291.1 of the Criminal Code). Both are charged by the investigator of the Department for the Investigation of Crimes Committed by Law Enforcement Officials, the Main Investigation Department (GSU) TFR presented in absentia, as the defendants disappeared. At the request of the investigation, the accused were initially put on the federal and then international wanted list and arrested in absentia by the court.
It follows from the case file that the officers, under the threat of criminal prosecution, imposed a "roof" on Alexey Ivanov (Bilyuchenko), the system administrator of the World Exchange Services Pte. Ltd. (Wex, formerly BTC) crypto exchange registered in Singapore. It should be noted that the criminal case against the creator of BTC Alexander Vinnik, issued by Greece to the United States, in May should begin to be considered in the court of the Northern District of California. He is accused of laundering between $4 billion and $9 billion.
In turn, the Russian police, according to the GSU TFR, in the period from March 2019 to October 2021, received bribes in the form of other property-cryptocurrencies in the amount of at least 2119.5265569864 bitcoin (BTC) 10 016 ethereum (ETS), equivalent to the amount of at least 4.9 billion rubles.
The crypt was transferred through Sokolov's intermediary to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by Georgy Satyukov for "illegal actions (inaction) and general patronage in the service" in favor of Mr. Ivanov. Thus, the investigation charged Georgy Satyukov with receiving the largest bribe in the history of the Russian Interior Ministry. Prior to this, the record holder was an underground billionaire from the ministry Dmitry Zakharchenko, who was sentenced to 16 years for accepting bribes totaling 1.4 billion rubles, while, however, assets worth 9 billion were found and confiscated from him.
The defendants in the new corruption scandal, as stated in the case file, also "have a significant amount of real estate" and funds in bank and brokerage accounts "opened with persons entrusted to them." Only Georgy Satyukov and his relatives found six large real estate objects, including a two-hundred-meter apartment in the Nezhinsky Kovcheg residential complex in Moscow, as well as about 13 accounts in various banks. Mr. Sokolov's Russian assets are still unknown, but the case file mentions that he allegedly owns apartments in Dubai's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa Tower.
Mr. Satyukov's lawyer declined to comment, and his colleague's lawyer was unavailable for comment.
However, it is known that they appealed against the arrest of their clients, who are supposed to be detained for two months from the moment of their actual detention in Russia or extradition from abroad, but did not succeed. The defense tried to prove violations of jurisdiction in this criminal case, namely, pointed out that the bribe giver was in Novosibirsk at the time of the crime, and the codes from the crypto wallets were transmitted to the police in St. Petersburg, respectively, in these cities, and not in the capital, and an investigation should be conducted.
In addition, it was pointed out that the defendants were not informed about their criminal prosecution and that they should not go abroad. The passports of police officers who possess information constituting state secrets are kept by their management.
And the investigation did not provide information that they became owners of new documents necessary for leaving the country. Thus, it is still unclear how the former employees of the K department left Russia.
According to Kommersant, the investigation found out about the alleged corruption in the BSTM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs thanks to a pre-trial cooperation agreement that Mr. Ivanov concluded with the First Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Anatoly Razinkin. As part of the "deal", he pleaded guilty to embezzlement from the cryptocurrency exchange (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code) for a total amount of 3 billion 167 million 433 thousand 649 rubles. 36 kopecks. He committed the crime by "performing the functions of technical, administrative and financial management of the crypto exchange", including by accessing user profiles and accounts, viewing and changing balances with information about the amount of funds and cryptocurrencies placed, as well as redistributing cryptocurrencies between "hot" and "cold" wallets.
Despite the objections of the aggrieved party, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow considered Mr. Ivanov's criminal case in a special order.
The accused claimed in court that he was not going to embezzle the funds, but only tried to hide them from the security forces — in addition to the BSTM employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSB operatives and solver operators claimed them, ready to solve all problems for a large fee. Only to the police, according to the accused, he transferred up to $5 million a month.
As a result, the entrepreneur was sentenced to three years and six months in a general regime colony, a fine of 500 thousand rubles.and restriction of freedom for a period of one year after serving time. As lawyer Igor Shtang told Kommersant, his client actually compensated the damage to the exchange, but the representative of Wex filed a lawsuit with the Savelovsky District Court of Moscow, in which, referring to the difference in cryptocurrency exchange rates, he increased his claims to an unaffordable size for the defendant. According to Kommersant, this is about 16 billion rubles.
Ex-colleagues of an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are being sought for a bribe of 5 billion rubles
As it became known to Kommersant, the record for the amount of bribes set in the Ministry of Internal Affairs by ex-Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko has been broken more than three times. Georgy Satyukov, an employee of one of the most secret divisions of the ministry, the Bureau of Special Technical Measures (BSTM), was accused of receiving illegal rewards from the administrator of a cryptocurrency exchange totaling almost 5 billion rubles. However, unlike Mr. Zakharchenko, who is serving a 16-year sentence, the new defendant and his ex-colleague, who acted as an intermediary, managed to escape abroad and were arrested only in absentia. According to one version, the fugitives may be in Dubai, where one of them has apartments in the eight-hundred-meter Burj Khalifa tower.
Former head of the 3rd division of the 4th Division (for combating crimes in the credit and financial sphere committed using information technologies) of the Department for Combating Crimes in the field of information and Telecommunications Technologies ("K") of the BSTM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia Georgy Satyukov is accused of taking bribes on a particularly large scale (Part 6 of art. 290 of the Criminal Code), and his ex-colleague Dmitry Sokolov - in mediation in this (Article 291.1 of the Criminal Code). Both are charged by the investigator of the Department for the Investigation of Crimes Committed by Law Enforcement Officials, the Main Investigation Department (GSU) TFR presented in absentia, as the defendants disappeared. At the request of the investigation, the accused were initially put on the federal and then international wanted list and arrested in absentia by the court.
It follows from the case file that the officers, under the threat of criminal prosecution, imposed a "roof" on Alexey Ivanov (Bilyuchenko), the system administrator of the World Exchange Services Pte. Ltd. (Wex, formerly BTC) crypto exchange registered in Singapore. It should be noted that the criminal case against the creator of BTC Alexander Vinnik, issued by Greece to the United States, in May should begin to be considered in the court of the Northern District of California. He is accused of laundering between $4 billion and $9 billion.
In turn, the Russian police, according to the GSU TFR, in the period from March 2019 to October 2021, received bribes in the form of other property-cryptocurrencies in the amount of at least 2119.5265569864 bitcoin (BTC) 10 016 ethereum (ETS), equivalent to the amount of at least 4.9 billion rubles.
The crypt was transferred through Sokolov's intermediary to cryptocurrency wallets controlled by Georgy Satyukov for "illegal actions (inaction) and general patronage in the service" in favor of Mr. Ivanov. Thus, the investigation charged Georgy Satyukov with receiving the largest bribe in the history of the Russian Interior Ministry. Prior to this, the record holder was an underground billionaire from the ministry Dmitry Zakharchenko, who was sentenced to 16 years for accepting bribes totaling 1.4 billion rubles, while, however, assets worth 9 billion were found and confiscated from him.
The defendants in the new corruption scandal, as stated in the case file, also "have a significant amount of real estate" and funds in bank and brokerage accounts "opened with persons entrusted to them." Only Georgy Satyukov and his relatives found six large real estate objects, including a two-hundred-meter apartment in the Nezhinsky Kovcheg residential complex in Moscow, as well as about 13 accounts in various banks. Mr. Sokolov's Russian assets are still unknown, but the case file mentions that he allegedly owns apartments in Dubai's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa Tower.
Mr. Satyukov's lawyer declined to comment, and his colleague's lawyer was unavailable for comment.
However, it is known that they appealed against the arrest of their clients, who are supposed to be detained for two months from the moment of their actual detention in Russia or extradition from abroad, but did not succeed. The defense tried to prove violations of jurisdiction in this criminal case, namely, pointed out that the bribe giver was in Novosibirsk at the time of the crime, and the codes from the crypto wallets were transmitted to the police in St. Petersburg, respectively, in these cities, and not in the capital, and an investigation should be conducted.
In addition, it was pointed out that the defendants were not informed about their criminal prosecution and that they should not go abroad. The passports of police officers who possess information constituting state secrets are kept by their management.
And the investigation did not provide information that they became owners of new documents necessary for leaving the country. Thus, it is still unclear how the former employees of the K department left Russia.
According to Kommersant, the investigation found out about the alleged corruption in the BSTM of the Ministry of Internal Affairs thanks to a pre-trial cooperation agreement that Mr. Ivanov concluded with the First Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Anatoly Razinkin. As part of the "deal", he pleaded guilty to embezzlement from the cryptocurrency exchange (Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code) for a total amount of 3 billion 167 million 433 thousand 649 rubles. 36 kopecks. He committed the crime by "performing the functions of technical, administrative and financial management of the crypto exchange", including by accessing user profiles and accounts, viewing and changing balances with information about the amount of funds and cryptocurrencies placed, as well as redistributing cryptocurrencies between "hot" and "cold" wallets.
Despite the objections of the aggrieved party, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow considered Mr. Ivanov's criminal case in a special order.
The accused claimed in court that he was not going to embezzle the funds, but only tried to hide them from the security forces — in addition to the BSTM employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSB operatives and solver operators claimed them, ready to solve all problems for a large fee. Only to the police, according to the accused, he transferred up to $5 million a month.
As a result, the entrepreneur was sentenced to three years and six months in a general regime colony, a fine of 500 thousand rubles.and restriction of freedom for a period of one year after serving time. As lawyer Igor Shtang told Kommersant, his client actually compensated the damage to the exchange, but the representative of Wex filed a lawsuit with the Savelovsky District Court of Moscow, in which, referring to the difference in cryptocurrency exchange rates, he increased his claims to an unaffordable size for the defendant. According to Kommersant, this is about 16 billion rubles.
