Three Russian police generals, including an assistant to the country’s Interior Minister, have been detained on charges of misappropriating funds, Russian law enforcement announced Wednesday.
Lieutenant General Sergei Umnov and two senior colleagues — Major General Alexei Semyonov, head of St. Petersburg’s traffic police, and Major General Ivan Abakumov — are accused of embezzling money from the Program Assistance Fund for the St. Petersburg and Leningrad region’s Main Department of Internal Affairs between 2016 and 2020.
Umnov headed the Interior Ministry’s St. Petersburg branch between 2012 and 2019, when President Vladimir Putin appointed him as an assistant to Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev.
Kolokoltsev has not yet commented on the arrest.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, opened a criminal case into the men on allegations of grave abuse of office in July 2020, the Kommersant business daily reported.
If found guilty of the charges, the men face a maximum prison sentence of 10 years.
Abakumov previously faced imprisonment in 2021 for allegedly forging his sick leave, but judges dismissed his case after the statute of limitations expired, Kommersant reported.
Officials accused two other Interior Ministry major generals of abuse of power in the same year, although Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office refused to indict the officers citing insufficient evidence, the newspaper said.