The rating does not include embezzlement, misappropriation or fraud cases. The officials’ positions are stated as of the time of their arrest.
Vostock-PhotoPosition: Mayor of Tolyatti
Bribe: $6 million
Tolyatti mayor Nikolai Utkin and Natalya Nemykh, head of the city directorate for managing land resources, were detained on May 1, 2007. According to the investigation, they were extorting a 150-million-ruble bribe ($6 million) from the head of the Story-Finance construction company for the allocation of a 150-hectare plot of land for construction. During the handover of the first installment of the bribe, in the amount of 25 million rubles ($1 million), Alexander Sidorov, who was acting as an intermediary for the officials, was detained. On Feb. 12, 2008, a court in the Samara Region sentenced Utkin and Sidorov to seven years in prison, and Nemykh to eight-and-a-half years in prison. On Jun. 9, 2012, Utkin was released on parole; Nemykh was released on parole a year later.
Nikolai Utkin, the former mayor of Togliatti, an automotive industrial center on the Volga, was tried by the Samara regional court for bribery and abuse of office. Source: Yuri Streletc/RIA Novosti
Position: Deputy prosecutor of Moscow’s Northern Administrative District
Bribe: $3 million
Vyacheslav Trofimov was detained in a Moscow restaurant on Dec. 17, 2008. According to the investigation, he was extorting $3 million from the owner of a Moscow car dealership for closing a contraband criminal case. Trofimov was detained in the act of receiving the first installment of the bribe in the amount of $100,000. On Dec. 8, 2010, Moscow’s Golovinsky court sentenced Trofimov to 13 years and six months in prison and ordered him to pay 14 million rubles ($500,000) as damages to the businessman from whom he had been extorting a bribe. In March 2011, a court reduced that prison term by 18 months.
Former Deputy Prosecutor of Moscow's Northern District Vyacheslav Trofimov, right, coming into the courtroom to hear his verdict. Source: Andrey Stenin/RIA Novosti
Position: Head of the directorate of the Russian Pension Fund for St. Petersburg and Leningrad Region
Bribe: $1.9 million
Natalya Grishkevich was detained in St. Petersburg on Feb. 18, 2010. Her arrest was connected to the investigation of a criminal case against the former head of the VEFK bank, Alexander Gitelson. According to the investigation, Grishkevich received $1.9 million worth of bribes from Alexander Gitelson for maintaining the Pension Fund accounts at the VEFK bank — rather than at the local branch of the Central Bank, as is required under the pension fund law. On Jun. 16, 2015, St. Petersburg’s Primorsky court found Grishkevich guilty of accepting a large bribe. She was sentenced to 10 years in a penal colony and a fine of 950,000 rubles ($31,000).
Natalya Grishkevich was detained in St. Petersburg on Feb. 18, 2010. Photo: Grishkevich in court. Source: Kommersant
Position: Investigator of serious crimes at the Moscow inter-regional transport investigations directorate of the Russian Investigations Committee
Bribe: $1.5 million
Grigory Domovets was detained in his office on May 25, 2010. According to the investigation, Domovets received a $1.5-millon bribe for not prosecuting the director of a Moscow refrigeration plant in a meat smuggling case. Several senior officials from the same directorate were investigated in the initial investigation, but the other officials were later acquitted. On Nov. 26, 2010, the Moscow City Court sentenced Domovets, who had agreed to a plea bargain, to three years in prison. In January 2011, the Supreme Court suspended his sentence.
Former deputy head of the department on investigating transportation priority cases of the Moscow Inter-Regional Investigation Department at the Prosecutor Office's Investigation Committee Grigory Domovets accused of helping extort a $4 million bribe gives an interview to journalists before returning a verdict at a Moscow City Court. Source: Andrey Stenin/RIA Novosti
Position: Stavropol city manager
Bribe: $1.5 million
Igor Bestuzhev was detained on Feb. 2, 2012. He was charged with attempting to receive a 50-million-ruble ($1,5 million) bribe for transferring municipal land into private ownership for the purpose of building a shopping center on it. On Jul. 24, 2014, Stavropol’s Oktyabrsky district court found the former city manager guilty of extortion and two counts of receiving bribes worth 52 million rubles ($1,7 million). Igor Bestuzhev was sentenced to nine years in a high-security prison and fined 500 million rubles ($17,3 million).
Igor Bestuzhev was sentenced to nine years in a high-security prison and fined 500 million rubles ($17,3 million). Photo: Bestuzhev in court. Source: TASS
First published in Russian by Kommersant
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