Police have detained officers of the Center for Financial and Legal Support of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise of the Russian Federation Administrative Department of the President, suspected of extorting bribes for help in signing leases on buildings in the center of Moscow. The government officials charged 10 million rubles for their services.
According to information from the Main Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption of the Russian Interior Ministry (the Anti-Corruption Department), the group of detainees included the deputy director of the Center for Financial and Legal Support of the President’s Office and two of his subordinates, and also the general director of a commercial firm which had served as a middle man.
“It has been established that the officials demanded 10 million rubles from the representative of the commercial organization for signing a lease for office buildings on Varvarka Street in the center of Moscow,” a source in the Anti-Corruption Department said. As Kommersant subsequently learned, the buildings are owned by the Federal Agency for Management of State Property.
The victim filed an appeal with law-enforcement agencies. The Interior Ministry reported that the suspects were detained during an “operations experiment” while receiving the first portion of the bribe of approximately 4 million rubles. A criminal case under the criminal code article for “attempted crime” and “especially large-scale fraud” has been opened.
The detainees were released under a pledge not to leave town, after which detectives lost track of them, Interfax reported, citing a law-enforcement source. “After the suspects were released under the pledge not to leave town, their whereabouts have been unknown,” a law-enforcement source said.