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Russian police official detained on suspicion of taking bribe

The official has been detained in St. Petersburg on suspicion of taking a $790,000 bribe

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. The head of a regional branch of the Main Internal Security Department of Russia’s Interior Ministry has been detained in St. Petersburg on suspicion of taking a bribe of 50 million rubles ($790,000), the Investigative Committee said on Friday.

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Yuri Timchenko had demanded the bribe of 100 million rubles ($1.6 mln) from a representative of the Delovye Linii transportation company for "lifting the arrest of its accounts and ending a criminal case," the IC said. The criminal case against the transportation company was opened into failure to pay taxes worth more than 1 bln rubles ($15.8 mln) and its assets worth 1.5 bln ($23.7 mln) rubles were arrested.

Timchenko had asked to hand over the money to his accomplices Konstantin Marchenkov and Sergey Zinovenko. He expected to receive one part of the bribe - 50 million rubles ($790.000) - no later than on December 8 and the second part after lifting the arrest of the company’s accounts.

The accomplices were caught red-handed late on Thursday when receiving fake money that they planned to give to the police official. Timchenko was detained in his cabinet and the officers seized 350,000 rubles ($5,550).

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