President Vladimir Putin has dismissed a senior Moscow police official whose office has been tarnished by allegations of wrongdoing, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

A brief statement on the Kremlin website gave no explanation for the firing of Ivan Glukhov, deputy head of the Moscow police's Investigative Committee.

But Glukhov's deputy, Nelly Dmitriyeva, was accused of  receiving a $3 million bribe from two businessmen in exchange for closing a criminal case against them last year.

Dmitriyeva is in detention awaiting trial on bribery charges.

General-Major Glukhov, who was also a Moscow deputy police chief, had come under additional fire from former Moscow police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev, who publicly grilled him over the inefficiency of his department work in January.

The dressing down occurred at a meeting of senior police officials and sent a clear message to Glukhov to resign, Kommersant said Tuesday. Putin appointed Kolokoltsev interior minister in May.

Putin, who has the constitutional authority to hire and fire top police officials, replaced Glukhov with police General-Major Vladimir Morozov, the chief of the Smolensk regional police, continuing an Interior Ministry policy of promoting more regional officials to work at the federal level.