Russian investigator receives 2718 bitcoins from known hackers

The Balashikha City Court of Moscow Region has sentenced Marat Tambiev, the former head of the Investigative Committee of Russia’s Tverskoy District Department in Moscow, to 16 years in prison and a fine of 500 million rubles in the bitcoin bribery case. The court ruled that Tambiev will serve his sentence in a strict regime colony and banned him from holding senior positions in state institutions for 12 years after his release.

The former head of the department denied the charges and claimed that the facts of the criminal case had been falsified. «I do not recognize my guilt in what I am accused of. I believe that sooner or later there will be justice in this story, and this story will be shown in a completely different light,» the defendant said.

The second defendant, Tambiyev’s former subordinate, Senior Lieutenant of Justice Kristina Lyakhovenko, was sentenced to nine years in a general regime colony. Like her superior, the woman pleaded not guilty.

Marat Tambiyev is accused of receiving ten bribes on a particularly large scale, while Lyakhovenko was charged with abuse of power and receiving one bribe. According to the investigation, in 2020−2022, Tambiev received several sums of money in BTC from members of the Infraud Organization hacker group Mark Bergmanov, Konstantin Bergmanov, and Kirill Samokutyaev. The notorious cyber fraudsters transferred 2,718 bitcoins and another $ 1.5 million to the investigator «for making favorable decisions in a criminal case on the creation of a marketplace where stolen bank card data was sold.»

In 2023, the hackers received suspended sentences. Dmitry Gubin, a former deputy head of the Tverskoy district department of the Investigative Committee of Russia, was arrested in absentia in the case, but fled the country. In July 2023, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow seized 1032.1 bitcoins from Tambiev in favor of the state. The access codes to the two accounts were stored on the suspect’s laptop in a folder called «Pension». The remaining digital assets were allegedly obtained by Lyakhovenko and Gubin.