MOSCOW, February 6 (RAPSI) - Bribery charges have been additionally brought against ex-head of the Moscow Region’s Serpukhov District Alexander Shestun, who is currently under investigation on allegations of embezzlement, money laundering and illegal business activities, the Investigative Committee’s press service has reported.
According to investigators, between 2010 and 2011, Shestun organized unofficial audit of financial and operational activities of a physical fitness and sports promotion organization for capping amount of its cash inflows and outflows. When received the needed information he offered the organization’s chief his protection for a fee.
From 2012 to 2018, the organization’s head systematically gave Shestun bribes and bought sports equipment for his recreation center worth 519,000 rubles. In total, Shestun received over 9.9 million rubles in bribes ($150,500), investigators claim.
In January, prosecutors filed a lawsuit to forfeit 10-billion-ruble ($150 million) assets owned by Shestun to the state. This property status does not correspond to his income, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The former official is the owner of 676 real estate items in the Moscow Region’s Serpukhov district, 2 recreation facilities and 22 cars, prosecutors claim.
Shestun has registered his property in the name of his relatives or trustees to evade declaration and suppression of his actual material position. Some property items have been sold, and the funds received have been converted to his own use or the use of his cronies, according to the prosecution.
On January 18, the Investigative Committee reported that investigators received evidence that Shestun owned land plots worth 2.2 billion rubles ($33 million) aside from other assets found earlier.
Case papers read that between 2008 and 2014 the Serpukhov District administration headed by Shestun illegally transferred four land plots in a local village to the company Center. Damage caused by these actions was estimated at 62 million rubles (about $925,000), investigators claim. Shestun was put in detention. He pleads not guilty.
