Three Russian FSB officers charged with taking over $55 million in bribes

The Russian authorities have charged three officers from the Federal Security Service’s anti-corruption directorate with accepting bribes totaling more than five billion rubles ($55 million), state media outlet TASS reported on Monday.

According to the newspaper Kommersant, the charges stem from an earlier case in which four executives from the IT firm Merlion were accused of seeking the murder of the company’s former general director, Vyacheslav Simonenko. In February 2022, the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence. Shortly after, Simonenko himself was arrested for allegedly making false accusations.

TASS named the suspects in the new case as Alexey Tsarev, Sergey Manyshkin, and Alexander Ushakov. Ushakov is also charged with using his official position to organize a criminal group.

Kommersant reported that all three officers tried to obtain bribes from Merlion’s co-owners in exchange for dropping the attempted murder charges against them.

Tsarev and Manyshkin have reportedly been placed on house arrest, while Ushakov is in state custody.