MOSCOW, July 10. Moscow courts, at the request of the investigation, are seizing the assets of former employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Georgy Satyukov and Dmitry Sokolov, who are accused in absentia of bribery worth five billion rubles, a source in law enforcement agencies said.
«The assets of the defendants are being seized as part of the investigation of the case «, said the agency's interlocutor, without specifying what objects we are talking about.
From the court decisions on complaints about the choice of a preventive measure in absentia for the defendants, which the defendants have, it follows that both are currently on the international wanted list, and their defense claims that the criminal case was initiated illegally. Satyukov is charged with receiving bribes on an especially large scale, Sokolov is charged with mediation in receiving them.
As Kommersant reported, Satyukov worked as the head of the department for combating crimes in the credit and financial sector committed using information technologies, and Sokolov was his subordinate. According to investigators, the administrator of the crypto exchange World Exchange Services Pte. Ltd. (WEX) Alexey Ivanov was actively protected by FSB officers, and from March 2019 to October 2021 — by Ministry of Internal Affairs officers, to whom he transferred at least 2,119 BTC to crypto wallets for “illegal actions (inaction) and general patronage,” which was then equivalent to an amount of at least 4.9 billion rubles.
Ivanov himself, who was caught embezzling cryptocurrency, told the investigation about the payments to the security forces. Later he received 3.5 years in prison.
The alleged bribe-takers converted part of the amount received into rubles and foreign currency, placing them in dozens of banks and investing in securities. Then they started buying real estate with them. The fugitives have already had an apartment in the Nezhinsky Kovcheg residential complex and an apartment in the Scarlet Sails complex seized. The defendants bought real estate and issued accounts mainly for their friends and cohabitants, the publication clarifies.