Russian Investigator Faces 16 Years Jail Time for Accepting $73M Bitcoin Bribe

The Russian government has sentenced Marat Tambiyev, a former state investigator, to 16 years in prison for accepting bribes in BTC worth about $73 million. This is the largest bribery case in the country’s history.

According to a Reuters report, Tambiyev was accused of receiving five times more than the country’s previous bribe record.

Tambiyev Accused of Accepting Bitcoin Bribe Worth $73M

Tambiyev was accused last year of accepting a bribe in BTC from members of an organized crime group he was investigating while working for the Investigative Committee of Russia.

According to Russian prosecution, instead of seizing all the assets for the state, Tambiyev arranged for more than half of the organized crime group’s bitcoin holdings to be transferred into his crypto wallets while allowing them to keep the other half of the funds.

Investigators discovered the wallets’ keys in a file called “Pension” on Tambiyev’s laptop. Authorities have retrieved over a third of the funds once held on his computer. However, the locations of the rest of the Bitcoin remains unclear.

Tambiyev denied the charges, claiming that he had been framed and his actions enabled the state to recover some criminal funds.

He intends to appeal the sentencing alongside Kristina Lyakhovenko, a colleague jailed for nine years for her role in the same case.

Not the First

This incident underscores the ongoing battle against cybercrime and corruption that various countries face. As the crypto landscape evolves, maintaining integrity among investigators remains paramount to effectively combat cybercriminals.

CoinTab recently reported how the Australian authorities seized $6.4 million linked to a global crime following a detailed investigation.

Meanwhile, this is not the first time criminals have tried to bribe high-ranking officials and law enforcement with bitcoin in recent years. In 2022, the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Chinese intelligence officers paid a bribe of $61,000 in bitcoin to a double agent working on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).