At least six former and current law enforcement officials have been arrested on various charges in Russia’s third-largest city of Yekaterinburg over the past week, the independent news website Govorit NeMoskva reported Friday.
Andrei Dyakov, who heads the anti-corruption department at the Sverdlovsk region branch of Russia’s Interior Ministry, was charged with abuse of power and bribery. Authorities accuse him of accepting 200 million rubles ($2.2 million) in bribes, allegations that he denies.
A Yekaterinburg court ruled Thursday to keep Dyakov in pre-trial detention until July 20, according to local media.
Besides Dyakov, state media reported that authorities detained Sergei Loginov, who heads the regional branch of Russia’s Federal Tax Service. While the agency denied the reports, Loginov’s biography disappeared from its website, and Marina Khan was instead listed as acting head of the regional tax service branch as of May 17.
There were no details available on what, if any, charges Loginov faces. According to local media reports, citing anonymous sources, “law enforcement officials from Moscow” have sought to keep the case against the tax official under wraps.
Last week, meanwhile, former anti-drug police chief Vladislav Sobolev and four other officers were charged over the 2000 killing of three people, the Kommersant business daily reported. Sobolev, who was dismissed that same year, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on drug dealing charges in 2006, according to the newspaper.
It was not immediately clear if the cases against the six law enforcement officials were connected, or if they represented a wider crackdown in the region’s security services.