Russian official arrested for accepting bribes of more than 1000 Bitcoins

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News from economic newspaper Kommersant said that Marat Tambiev – former Head of the Investigative Division of the Tverskoy District Committee (ICR), Moscow city, allegedly received 1032.1 Bitcoin (BTC) bribes, approximately 28 million USD from hacker groups that ICR is investigating. The case will be heard by Moscow's Nikulinsky District Court on June 5.

The report said Tambiev's bribes were discovered during a search of his home on Bolshaya Ochakovskaya Street in Moscow. Checking on Tambiev's Apple MacBook Pro laptop, investigators discovered a folder called "Pension", which contained a photo of a piece of paper with keywords to allow Tambiev to access the two crypto wallet containing 932.1 BTC and 100 BTC respectively.

To prove the above behavior, Deputy Prosecutor General pointed out, Tambiev received only 11.7 million rubles (~$150,000) salary during his tenure at the Investigative Committee. Possessing $28 million worth of Bitcoins shows that he received assets from illegal sources, while all family members have no valuable assets.

According to the investigative agency, Tambiev received cryptocurrency on April 7, 2022 from hacker groups such as Infraud Organization Mark; Konstantin Bergmanov and Kirill Samokutyaevsky, the hacker group that the Investigative Service headed by Tambiev was conducting a criminal investigation at the time. The hacker group was given suspended prison sentences of between 2.5 and 3.5 years, and authorities also recovered about $8.6 million worth of BTC from the subjects.

Marat Tambiev. Photo: IPACS RANEPA

Tambiev then repeatedly denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit against the Investigative Committee, demanding reinstatement of his position and compensation due to the ongoing investigations, while the allegations remain unproven. However, Tambiev was officially fired for violating internal regulations and discrediting an investigator. The case was dismissed by the court because Tambiev's bribery practices were proven by a department audit.

With $28 million or 1.6 billion rubles, this is the largest corruption case ever faced by a Russian investigator. Breaking the previous corruption record of the underground billionaire of the Russian Interior Ministry, Dmitry Zakharchenko with 1.4 billion rubles. However, Zakharchenko's time to receive the bribe lasted for a decade.

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