More than 700 billion rubles ($10.5 billion) was transferred illegally from Russia into offshore accounts in 2015, the Russian Interior Ministry announced Friday, the TASS news agency reported.
Head of the Department for Economic Security, Andrei Kurnosenko, said that ten banks and 20 offshore companies had been involved in the transfers.
“We identified almost 23,000 crimes linked to the transfer of money abroad. In total, more than 700 billion rubles were illegally moved first to Moldova and then to offshore accounts,” he told the TASS news agency Friday.
Economic crimes are already on the rise in 2016, with more than 2,000 potential illegal acts already identified by police, Kurnosenko said.
The number of recorded economic crimes being committed by organized groups has already risen by 60 percent in the first half of this year, he told TASS.
The cost of the average bribe also rose last year, now reaching 200,000 rubles ($3000).
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