MOSCOW, June 6 (RAPSI) – The Federal Security Service (FSB) officers arrested the Irkutsk Region’s timber complex minister Sergey Sheverda suspected of abuse of office resulted in grave consequence at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, the Investigative Committee’s press service reported Thursday.

Sheverda was arrested as part of investigation initiated earlier into illegal clear sanitary felling in a state nature reserve of regional significance in the Irkutsk Region, the statement reads.

Earlier, several regional officials involved in the case were charged with abuse of power, illegal logging and disturbance of regime of specially protected natural reservations.

According to investigators, the defendants illegally ordered, agreed upon a schedule and sanitized the nature reserve. As a result of illegal logging, damage totaling to nearly 748 million rubles ($11.5 million) was caused to Russia’s Timber Fund, hunting resources and their habitat, soils and animals.