Russian authorities seized $10M in bitcoin from ex-official Marat Tambiev, marking a historic crypto bribery case. Confiscated funds to bolster state revenue.
Russian state money will be generated from the Bitcoin confiscated from Marat Tambiev, a former employee of the ICRF.
According to local media, a former law enforcement official had $10 million worth of Bitcoin seized by the Russian government.
In a significant cryptocurrency bribery case, Russian law enforcement officials have started seizing Bitcoin (BTC)$94,881 from a former employee of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF).
According to a Jan. 8 news agency report, the authorities started seizing 1 billion Russian rubles ($10 million), or around 103 Bitcoin, from former ICRF employee Marat Tambiev, who was found guilty of crypto bribery in 2023.
As part of the legal process, the seized Bitcoin will contribute to Russia’s governmental revenue. According to reports, officers accessed Tambiev’s Ledger Nano X hardware cryptocurrency wallet to confiscate the assets.
The bribe that brought in 2,718 Bitcoin was the greatest bribery in Russian history.
However, according to local authorities, the 103 BTC confiscated in Tambiev’s case only accounts for 4% of the entire bribery sum.
A court sentenced Tambiev to 16 years in prison in October 2024 for taking a bribe of 2,718 BTC, or around $258 million. According to the local news source RBC, the case has been called the most significant bribery in Russian history.
Since the assets were obtained as unconfirmed income, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow ordered the seizure of 1,032 BTC, or roughly $98 million, from Tambiev in 2023.
The bribe was paid by the hacker organization Infraud Organization.
When Marat Tambiev was allegedly taken into custody in March 2022, police found the private keys to his Bitcoin wallet on his laptop in a folder called “Retirement.”
The court and the authorities concluded that the Infraud Organization, a hacker collective, had paid Tambiev thousands of bitcoins.
The gang members, Kirill Samokutyaev of Estonia and Mark and Konstantin Bergman of Kazakhstan, are accused of bribing Tambiev in several procedural decisions, including their criminal case.
According to the inquiry, several former ICRF workers allegedly demanded money from hackers affiliated with the Infraud Organization.
According to TASS, the bribes were allegedly offered in return for preventing the hackers from being prosecuted and for the chance to conceal cryptocurrency holdings valued at least $14 billion ($138 million).
