The Russian government confiscated $10 million worth of Bitcoin from a former law enforcement official, according to local reports.
Russian court enforcement officers have begun confiscating Bitcoin (BTC) from a former employee at the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) in a massive bribery case involving cryptocurrency.
The officers began proceedings to seize 1 billion Russian rubles ($10 million) — or roughly 103 BTC — from former ICRF employee Marat Tambiev, who was convicted of crypto bribery in 2023, the news agency TASS reported on Jan. 8.
The confiscated Bitcoin will be added to Russia’s state revenue as part of the legal proceedings. Officers reportedly accessed Tambiev’s hardware cryptocurrency wallet, a Ledger Nano X, to seize the assets.
The bribe netted 2,718 BTC — the largest bribery ever seen in Russia
Still, the 103 BTC seized in Tambiev’s case represents only 4% of the total bribery amount, local sources said.
In October 2024, a Russian court sentenced Tambiev to 16 years in prison for accepting a bribe of 2,718 BTC, worth about $258 million. The case has been described as the largest bribery case in the history of Russia, according to the local news agency RBC.
Former ICRF employee Marat Tambiev was convicted in a 2,718 Bitcoin bribery scandal in Russia. Source: RBC
In 2023, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow ordered the seizure of 1,032 BTC, worth about $98 million, from Tambiev, stating that the assets were acquired as unconfirmed income.
Hacker group Infraud Organization behind the bribe
Tambiev was reportedly arrested in March 2022, and enforcement officers located his Bitcoin wallet private keys on his laptop in a folder labeled “Retirement.”
The officers and the court concluded that Tambiev had received thousands of BTC from a hacker group known as the Infraud Organization.
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The group members, Kazakhstan citizens Mark and Konstantin Bergman and Estonian citizen Kirill Samokutyaev, reportedly bribed Tambiev in various procedural decisions, including their own criminal case.
The investigation found that the case also involved multiple former ICRF employees who reportedly extorted bribes from Infraud Organization hackers.
The bribes were reportedly offered in exchange for stopping the hackers’ prosecution and an opportunity to hide crypto assets worth at least 14 billion rubles ($138 million), according to TASS.
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