MOSCOW, January 31 - RAPSI. Bailiffs recovered over 119 billion rubles ($4 billion) in debts in the Moscow Region last year, Sergei Zamorodskikh, chief court bailiff of the Moscow region, said on Thursday.

He said that the regional bailiffs monitored the implementation of nearly 1.4 million court rulings in 2012, which is 145,500 more than the year before.

"Over the past year, we implemented over 625,000 of these rulings, worth a total of over 119 billion rubles," Mr. Zamorodskikh said. He noted that around 6 billion rubles ($200 million) were transferred to different budgets thanks to the bailiffs' effective work.

"This includes over 5.1 billion rubles in taxes, over 444 million rubles in execution fees and over 372 million rubles in administrative penalties," the region's chief bailiff said. Persistent non-payers were prevented from going abroad. Sergei Zamorodskikh said that last year around 10,000 residents of the Moscow Region were stopped from travelling abroad, following which over 1,100 people paid their debts, to a total value of over 147 million rubles ($5 million).

The bailiff added that 1,500 people in the Moscow Region paid their debts after court bailiffs had sent out in excess of 12,000 text messages.