On Wednesday, head of a property management department in the State Duma was caught red-handed on suspicions of trading some posts in the staff of the State Duma Committees, which are directly related to the legislation. The detectives found that he promised to appoint two people as advisers in the staff of the State Duma for 1.2 million roubles.
The press service of the Moscow police department said the detainee received over a million roubles from two people, the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily reported. “For this sum he pledged to help them to get the posts of advisers in the staff of the State Duma. Officers of the main department for economic security and counteraction to corruption of the Russian Interior Ministry caught him red-handed in the Tverskaya Street on Tuesday evening, when he was receiving the money from candidates for the posts. The criminal case was opened against him for fraud. The punishment under this criminal article envisages up to ten years in prison,” the press service said.
It is noteworthy that the surname of the State Duma bribe taker has not been made public on Wednesday. Nine heads of various property management departments in the lower house of Russian parliament were named at the official website of the State Duma. The Moscow police department did not name the surname of the detained official to the Novye Izvestia daily, referring to the observance of the interests of the investigation. Only on Wednesday evening a representative of the staff of the State Duma for public relations named an official, who is accused of fraud that is head of the engineering technical department Andrei Vostrov.
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily succeeded to learn some details of the scandalous case. Head of the engineering technical property management department of the State Duma Andrei Vostrov traded the posts. Through a mediator he got in touch with some businesspeople, who wished to become State Duma officials. It turned out that the vacancies of advisers are available in two most prestigious committees of the lower house of Russian parliament – the State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation and State Construction (chairman Vladimir Pligin) and the State Duma Committee for Civil, Criminal, Arbitration and Procedural Legislation (chairman Pavel Krasheninnikov). The detectives found that Vostrov traded these official posts at the price of 1,200,000 roubles, in other words, demanding about 20,000 dollars from each candidate.
The history does not point to how the head of the engineering technical property management department of the State Duma intended to lobby his prot·g·s. The investigative bodies are to inquire into this. Moreover, the newspaper learnt that a candidate for a quite authoritative post had previous convictions.
The State Duma department for public relations and cooperation with the media were bewildered with the incident. “Vostrov did not have any chances to promote his candidates to the posts,” a representative of the department, who asked to stay unnamed, said. Final decisions on recruitment at such a high level are taken by head of the staff of the State Duma Dzhakhan Pollyeva. However, before the documents on a candidate are put on her table, they are to pass through a multi-level procedure, which involves many heads of relevant departments.