Stories about how officials (including law enforcement officers), thanks to bribes, make a huge fortune will not surprise anyone. But there are some cases that are truly unique.
In 2016, a truly unique corruption story broke out, followed by the entire state. Its type is normal. One of the law enforcement officers, Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Dmitry Zakharchenko, who oversaw the fight against crimes in the fuel and energy complex in the ministry, took bribes from entrepreneurs. But everyone was shocked by the scale of illegally obtained funds. During searches in the house of Zakharchenko’s sister, almost 9 billion rubles in cash were found. An ordinary Russian will not even be able to store such an amount of cash at home: there simply won’t be enough space. Zakharchenko’s key accomplice was also a colonel, but of a different structure – the FSB Dmitry Senin. How the criminal duet of colonels managed to create a huge corruption system – in our material.
The greed of the fraers ruined
It is clear that we are not talking about a single bribe, but about a whole system of monthly fees from various enterprises to protect them. Roughly speaking, law enforcement officers, instead of their function of protecting the law and citizens, have themselves turned into racketeers, demanding a monthly percentage from businessmen.
Zakharchenko and Senin were caught openly out of stupidity. Usually for themselves, as a bribe, they demanded a bribe in the amount of 800 thousand US dollars and a 50% discount card in the Dussa restaurant from the owner of the La Marre restaurant Medi Doussa. In order to make the need to provide bribes to law enforcement officers obvious, Senin, together with Zakharchenko, thanks to their good connections, in every possible way hindered the development of Duss’s business, which led to losses for the restaurant. The businessman agreed to the conditions set by the bribe-takers in order to somehow work adequately, and through Senin he transferred funds and a restaurant club card to Zakharchenko.
Medi Duss
All this happened during 2014. But here we must pay tribute to Duss, who realized that once the law enforcement officers were not enough, and they would constantly “milk” the restaurateur. Duss turned to his influential acquaintance, General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Alexander Laushkin, with a request to find out who exactly arranges such intrigues for business. Some time later, Laushkin provided Duss with information about Zakharchenko and Senin. And then the businessman decided to turn to law enforcement officers.
Alexey Laushkin
In the case, the story looked completely different: Laushkin knew perfectly well who was “shaking” funds from Duss, and not only did not prevent this, but, on the contrary, was one of the intermediate links in this chain, which as a result led to Colonel Zakharchenko.
In 2016, Zakharchenko was detained, and as we have already mentioned, investigators seized almost 9 billion rubles in cash from his sister’s house. In addition, Zakharchenko owned about 30 real estate objects, gold bars, 3 luxury cars, and so on.
Cash confiscated during a search in the house of Zakharchenko’s sister
While the investigators, frankly shocked by the size of the loot, tried to conduct a criminal case, another person involved, Dmitry Senin, was in low positions before his escape from Russia.
As a result, in 2019, Colonel Zakharchenko received a real term in the form of 13 years in prison, and now an even more high-profile criminal case of bribes totaling 1.2 billion rubles has been brought to court against him. Perhaps in the near future Zakharchenko will receive no less time.
Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko at the trial
Mysterious missing
Colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko was detained in September 2016. At first, Dmitry Senin was in the case as a witness. But, since he himself comes from law enforcement agencies, it was obvious that he would be found sooner or later. Since he further continued to be in the service of the FSB, he would not have been able to easily disappear, so Senin came up with a plan.
One fine February day, Senin left the FSB headquarters in Lubyanka for lunch and disappeared.
FSB building on Lubyanka
Only after 3 years it will become clear that the very next day Senin, thanks to a fake passport in the name of Timur Kudasov, crossed the Upper Lars checkpoint towards Georgia. In the office safe in his office, he left an FSB officer’s ID and a letter of resignation. But this did not prevent the initiation of a criminal case against the ex-employee due to desertion.
But after the next 3 years, they forgot about Senin. Only in July 2021, the former security officer was put on the international wanted list, which as a result paid off, but this was all much later.
Not ten billion, but also not sickly
Finally, in May 2022, the Senin case was brought to court. The location of the most suspect at that time was unknown, so the trial of the case against Senin was in absentia. Earlier, the court in civil proceedings confiscated 20 apartments and 11 luxury cars in Senin and his immediate family for a total of 380 million rubles. The most expensive metropolitan apartment, which was owned by Senin, was estimated at more than 60 million rubles, and was located on Dmitry Ulyanov Street. It is noteworthy that in the appeal, Senin’s relatives managed to “beat back” the Toyota Land Cruiser 200, Lexus LX-570 and one of the apartments. This happened due to the fact that it was possible to prove that cars and real estate legally belonged to distant relatives, and according to the current legislation, the court did not have the right to confiscate this property.
The driver of Senin, Viktor Kluzhenkov, was not so lucky. First, in June 2017, he was arrested on charges of complicity in the transfer of a bribe. But after half a year, the Basmanny Court of Moscow nevertheless placed him under house arrest. As a result, the criminal case against the driver was dropped almost a year later due to the lack of corpus delicti in the case of the personal driver of the FSB colonel.
Viktor Kluzhenkov
Is the end not far off?
Obviously, the more time passes, the less opportunity to catch the criminal. Dmitry Senin fled Russia in February 2017. More than 5.5 years have passed since his disappearance. Various versions were put forward, starting with the fact that he died, ending with the fact that he was hiding in the Russian outback, changed his appearance and documents.
But nevertheless, the request for an international search for a suspect in corruption gave a result.
On September 26, in the 235th garrison military court (where Senin’s case of desertion from the FSB is being considered), it was announced that Senin had been detained in Montenegro on September 4.
The Prosecutor General’s Office immediately filed a request to extradite the suspect to Russia, but so far there has been no response. This is not strange, because extradition is not a quick process. However, it all comes down to the fact that in the near future Senin will join his friend Colonel Zakharchenko in the dock at home. The story reaches its logical conclusion, and in this case, there is great hope that the perpetrators will be legally punished.
