Another Russian Law Enforcement Officer Arrested For Alleged Bribery, $74M Scheme

A high-level Russian court has issued an arrest warrant for former senior inspector Dmitry Gubin of Moscow.

What Happened: Gubin allegedly received 2,718 Bitcoin BTC/USD ($74.5 million) in bribes.

There have been suspicions that he has evaded the country, hence the issuance of an arrest warrant.

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A report from “The Moscow Court” telegram channel, as reported by CoinGape, indicated severe charges under Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation which relates to receiving large-scale bribes. He is also charged under Part 1 of Article 286 referring to exceeding official powers.  

Background: Last month, Gubin’s subordinate Kristina Lyakhovenko was arrested in a similar bribery case.

Separately, Marat Tambiev — former head of the investigative department of the Tverskoy District Committee — remains in pre-trial detention since January for allegedly extorting Bitcoin from hackers for their release who were arrested.

After Tambiev arrested two members of the Infraud Organization, the notorious Russian cybercriminal group, hackers allegedly paid a bribe of 1,032 BTC to the officer so that he would not confiscate all their crypto.

In July, the Moscow court seized 1,032.1 BTC from Tambiev, holding it in state income.

Read Now: Russian Official Detained For Storing $24M Bitcoin Bribes In 'Pension Folder'

His laptop led to the finding of access codes for two cryptocurrency accounts. Lyakhovenko and Gubin are believed to have acquired the remaining BTC. The investigation is ongoing, and the crimes have not yet been established in a court of law.

Investigations believe that the suspects formed a criminal syndicate to receive bribes from individuals connected to various criminal cases.

CoinDesk reported that Crystal Blockchain located the wallets that contained the bribe based on fragments of addresses listed in the leaked court documents. Additionally, previously unreported wallets belonging to Infraud were located by Crystal which is closely connected with the darknet marketplaces UniCC and LuxSocks.

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Russia Developments: Binance recently announced that it would sell its Russia business to the newly launched exchange CommEX.

The company stated that it has not retained any option to buy back shares in the business.

International sanctions are imposed on Russia to exclude it from the U.S. dollar-powered global payment infrastructure due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

As a result, Russia is keen on mining crypto for carrying out export-import deals. It is also working on a bill that will create a national agency to license and supervise cryptocurrency platforms operating in Russia.

Read Now: Binance CEO Denies Owning CommEx, But Russian Customers Will Notice Similarities

Image: Moscow skyline, Pixabay