MOSCOW -- President Boris Yeltsin has ordered an investigation of the Federal Security Service, successor to the KGB, following reports the agency is rife with crime and scandal.
"The president is seriously concerned with recent news reports that some FSB officials have taken illegal actions," presidential spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin said at a news conference Friday.
Yeltsin has ordered security service chief Vladimir Putin to clean up the agency following allegations of murder plots, extortion, kidnappings, and infiltration by crime gangs.
Putin met with Yeltsin on Friday, and "informed him of corruption among certain senior civil servants," Yakushkin added, without elaborating.
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