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Europe
Blackmail Ring Run By Moscow Police Busted
2003-06-23
The police on Monday broke up a ring of senior law enforcement officials who planted drugs and guns on people in a blackmail scheme that generated millions of dollars, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said. Fifteen suspects — including senior police investigators, an FSB officer, a prosecutor and a high-ranking Emergency Situations Ministry official — were detained in more than 40 raids around Moscow. The police seized at least $3 million in the crackdown, spearheaded by the Interior Ministry's internal affairs department. "The Interior Ministry officials, after several months of work, have put an end to a gang of werewolves wearing police epaulets," Gryzlov said in televised remarks. "The backbone of the gang were Moscow police officers, several military servicemen and representatives of other law enforcement agencies." An internal affairs spokesman said most of the detainees are officers in the Moscow police's elite investigative directorate, known by the acronym MUR.

He said the highest-ranking official detained was the head of the Emergency Situations Ministry's security directorate, Lieutenant General Vladimir Ganeyev, but the ringleaders are thought to be the deputy head of a MUR department, Yury Samolkin, and two senior MUR investigators, brothers Nikolai and Valery Dyomins. The spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said about 30 officials are believed to belong to the ring and more arrests are expected soon. The Interior Ministry said more than 100 people were blackmailed over four years. "Investigators have established that officers in a department of the Moscow police investigative directorate planted handguns, ammunition and drugs on citizens with the aim to blackmail them later," Gryzlov said. "They organized searches of these citizens, opened criminal investigations and then closed them for money."
Gryzlov said several victims ended up being sentenced in court to time in prison. "We hope to work through all instances of false criminal cases in the near future. The victims will be rehabilitated in the eyes of the law," he told Interfax. "We will not give the traitors a chance to escape responsibility."
Even though they all say they were framed by the coppers, in this case it turns out some of them were. Now they've got to sort out which ones.
The internal affairs spokesman said the ring also is suspected of working with criminal groups in a protection racket targeting local businesses. "Using their relations with Moscow's organized criminal groups, they organized shakedowns at prosperous businesses, mostly casinos and restaurants, and then offered protection," he said. Protection was provided through a private security service set up by the ring, he said. He said the ring is suspected of ordering and carrying out the murders of several businessmen who refused to accept protection.
Humm, like the heads of two Russian arms companies who just got whacked?
Posted by:Steve

#1  All right! Moscow Confidential!
Posted by: tu3031   6/23/03 9:45:31 PM  

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