A Moscow court has sentenced a former anti-corruption official in the Interior Ministry to 13 years in prison after finding him guilty of large-scale bribery and obstruction of justice.
Dmitry Zakharchenko, who served as deputy head of the Interior Ministry’s economic security and anti-corruption office, was arrested in September 2016 on bribery and abuse of power charges. Authorities seized 9 billion rubles from Zakharchenko’s apartments in 2017, which was then valued at around $125 million, the largest cash seizure in modern Russian history at the time.
The Presnensky district court also ordered Zakharchenko to pay 117 million rubles ($1.8 million) in fines, the state-run RIA Novosti news outlet reported Monday.
Zakharchenko was found guilty of receiving bribes in the form of a discount card from restaurateur Mehdi Douss, which allowed him to save 3 million rubles ($46,000) at the restaurant La Maree in exchange for protection. RIA Novosti reported that he was acquitted of another count of bribery that claimed he took an $800,000 bribe from Douss.
The court also found Zakharchenko guilty of taking actions “to obstruct the investigation” into the bribery, RIA Novosti reported.
