Moscow's top police official overseeing extremism cases and a former city prosecutor are suspected of working in cahoots with the senior investigator arrested over the weekend in connection with a $15 million bribe.
Sergei Khatsernov, head of the city police's department for fighting extremism, and Ruslan Parkin, former deputy chief prosecutor of Moscow's Central Administrative District, are suspected of helping investigator Andrei Grivtsov solicit the bribe from Vladimir Palikhata, president of Rosenergomash, a leading electrical engineering manufacturer, Kommersant reported Tuesday, without citing any sources.
The whereabouts of Khatsernov and Parkin are unknown, and the two men have been put on a national wanted list, the report said.
City police spokeswoman Zhanna Ozhimina said the police had no information about Khatsernov having been put on a wanted list, Interfax reported. She said Khatsernov has been on vacation in Italy since Dec. 31.
As the police force's top official on extremism, Khatsernov would have been responsible for keeping a close eye on skinheads, ultranationalists and groups deemed by courts as extremist, including the banned National Bolshevik Party.
Grivtsov, who headed the Investigative Committee's department for special cases in the Central Federal District, was arrested Saturday, two days after police detained a man trying to collect a first $8 million installment of the bribe at a Moscow bank, the Investigative Committee said. Grivtsov is believed to have sought the money in exchange for not opening a criminal investigation into Palikhata, the Rosenergomash president, the committee said.
Grivtsov had been in charge of a criminal investigation into businessman Nikolai Nesterenko, who was accused of seizing a building in St. Petersburg in a raider attack, Kommersant said.
Grivtsov had accused Nesterenko of seizing the building on orders of business structures affiliated with Palikhata.