The Russian authorities might be including $30 million price of property seized from Georgy Satyukov to its treasury. The previous Ministry of Inside Affairs worker is believed to have accepted bribes price $30 million and used them to purchase numerous luxurious property.
Russian prosecutors are looking for to grab property price over 2.1 billion rubles from former Ministry of Inside Affairs official Georgy Satyukov, who allegedly accepted $184 million in Bitcoin and $30 million in Ethereum in bribes.
How did a Russian police official grow to be a millionaire?
A former Ministry of Inside Affairs worker named Georgy Satyukov was recognized by Russian prosecutors because the proprietor of assorted luxurious property, which Russian authorities consider had been bought with bribes from the operators of WEX crypto change.
These luxurious property embody 13 residences in Russia, a number of industrial properties in St. Petersburg, and a villa within the UAE. Satyukov’s property holdings additionally embody a $1 million property within the Russian metropolis of Saratov registered in his brother’s identify.
Past actual property, investigators found two Porsche Cayenne Turbo vehicles registered in Satyukov’s identify, all bought after 2021, together with seven Patek Philippe watches, an ST Dupont Paris watch, and different jewellery valued at over $1.3 million.
A search of Satyukov’s checking account revealed money reserves of $540,000, in addition to $38,500 in euros, and $14.2 million in Russian rubles held by him and his fast relations.
Satyukov started working on the ministry in 2001 and, between 2019 and 2021, headed a top-secret division codenamed “Ok” that specialised in investigating monetary fraud instances and cybercrime. Throughout his whole time as a Ministry of Inside Affairs worker, Satyukov’s wage would have added as much as simply $126,165.
The Prosecutor Basic’s Workplace has filed a lawsuit demanding that movable and immovable property belonging to Satyukov, his kinfolk, and Dmitry Sokolov, Satyukov’s colleague on the Ministry of Inside Affairs, who is taken into account an middleman within the bribery scheme, be transferred to state earnings.
What was the WEX Alternate?
Earlier than its collapse, the WEX change was a preferred platform that emerged in September 2017 as a successor to BTC-e.
BTC-e was based in July 2011 by Alexander Vinnik and Aleksandr Bilyuchenko, and as of February 2015, it dealt with round 3% of all Bitcoin change quantity. Nonetheless, the U.S. Justice Division shut the change down in July 2017 when it charged Vinnik with working an alleged worldwide cash laundering scheme.
The change was accused of facilitating legal actions as a result of it had no anti-money laundering or know-your-customer processes and picked up just about no buyer information.
WEX promised to compensate former BTC-e customers for his or her losses, however in the summertime of 2018, WEX shoppers’ wallets had been out of the blue frozen, and funds might solely be eliminated at a 90% loss. Roughly $450 million in cryptocurrency vanished from the change.
It was Alexey Ivanov, who pleaded responsible to embezzling 3.17 billion rubles from the cryptocurrency change, who pointed authorities to Satyukov after concluding a pre-trial cooperation settlement with the Prosecutor Basic’s Workplace.
In change for his cooperation, Ivanov was launched from legal legal responsibility for paying bribes however acquired a three-year and six-month sentence for embezzling funds from the change’s shoppers.
Satyukov was arrested in absentia and positioned on a world needed record. His alleged confederate, Sokolov reportedly died in Mexico in July 2024, in keeping with authorized representatives. Each males are believed to have fled Russia to keep away from prosecution. If convicted within the trial scheduled to start December 8, their seized property might be transferred to the Russian Treasury.
