JRL NEWSWATCH: “When flats become safe deposit boxes. Videos showing incredible amounts of money seized from officials and security services convince ordinary people of total corruption of state apparatus.” – Vedomosti/ Pavel Aptekar

May 22, 2019 JRL Russia List Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, Politics, Government, Protests, Elections, Spies, Spy Allegations

“The phrase … a ‘flat where the money lies’ is increasingly … literal … [when there is] confiscation from yet another high-ranking official or security services officer of colossal amounts of cash stored … at home, in bags and packages. … Rosbalt … and … other media … reported … money and valuables worth R12bn … confiscated from FSB [Federal Security Service] Col Kirill Cherkalin, former chief of the Directorate K Banking Department, and officers Dmitry Frolov and Andrei Vasilyev, … dismissed previously in compromising circumstances, all … arrested on charges of receiving especially large bribes (no refutations … forthcoming by … 19 May). … The corruption accusations call into question the objectivity of many high-profile corruption and large-scale theft cases conducted or operationally assisted by the FSB and strengthen ordinary people’s conviction that officials and security services are totally corrupt … that fighting corruption is pointless given that it has assumed such a scale and penetrated such areas. …”