Among other things, Tsitsulaev is accused of giving a bribe. He received 250 thousand euros from the wife of the imprisoned owner of the Delta Key payment system, Andrei Novikov, for his release. Tsitsulaev gave this money in full to his friend, ex-employee of state security agencies Igor Marin. He served in senior positions in Special Communications, was deputy head of the Vympel Foundation for Veterans and Law Enforcement Officers, and president of the St. Petersburg Taekwondo Sports Federation. During interrogation, Marin stated that he had deceived Tsitsulaev and did not intend to give the bribe to anyone. Therefore, Marin was charged with fraud. However, sources said that Marin was disingenuous during interrogation. The operatives found out that Marin was on friendly terms with one of the former deputy heads of the Investigative Department for the Central Administrative District of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Moscow, who was in charge of the case. He, having made inquiries at his previous place of work, stated that he had agreed that the charges against Novikov would be changed from kidnapping (Article 126 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and extortion (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) to arbitrariness (330 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). However, to do this, you need to bring the first tranche of the bribe (250 thousand euros was not the whole amount) before a certain date. Then nothing can be changed. However, Novikov’s wife gave the tranche later than date X. The money reached the ex-deputy head of the Investigation Department for the Central Administrative District, who began to try to negotiate. But he didn’t really succeed, and then a big scandal began around this whole story. Marin was given a sentence, which he served during the investigation – two years and 6 months in prison.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
