Interior Ministry operatives have busted a ring of senior Moscow regional officials who illegally registered to their names more than 25 hectares of land worth over $16 million outside Moscow, the ministry said in a statement Monday.
According to police investigators, the regional officials issued false ownership certificates on numerous plots of land in 2008-09.
The seven-member group was led by the deputy head of the administration of the Pushkinsky district, Denis Solomatin, and four of the suspects are in custody, while the rest are free under a written pledge not to leave town.
(MT)
