The Investigative Committee of Russia (TFR) suspected a number of former traffic police officers in the Rostov region of abuse of power, bribery and the use of a fake car number. Police officers are accused of extorting money from motorists on the M-4 Don federal highway. Some defendants are also suspected that they did not draw up protocols against violators, including drivers who drove without a license. According to investigators, some of the detained traffic cops used a car with an archival registration plate to receive bribes.
As it became known to Kommersant, the Main Investigation Department of the TFR initiated criminal cases against a number of employees of the Donskoy separate battalion of the traffic police of the traffic police No. 1 of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in the Rostov Region.
Former platoon commander Dmitry Gorinov, as well as former inspectors Grigory Makuev, Alexander Musatov, Yevgeny Kornienko, Ilya Shestakov, Oleg Stoyakin and Roman Tolmachev are suspected of abuse of office and using a false car number (part 1 of article 285, part 2 of article 326 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). All of them were dismissed in June last year in connection with the commission of an offense discrediting the honor of an employee of the internal affairs bodies.
As stated in the case file, the police officers worked at the 1041st kilometer of the M-4 Don highway and received bribes from motorists using a Ford Focus with a false (archival) registration plate for this.
From November 2020 to December 2021, traffic police officers allegedly did not draw up administrative protocols for three motorists who had previously been deprived of a driver’s license.
Also, the defendants did not take action on the discovery of drugs in the car of one of these motorists, investigators say.
In addition, against Dmitry Gorinov, Evgeny Kornienko, Ilya Shestakov, Oleg Stoyakin and inspector Andrey Denisenko, who was subsequently dismissed under the article, a second case was initiated on abuse of power and bribery (part 1 of article 285, part 5 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ). As part of it, the police are accused of not drawing up administrative protocols against violators and receiving at least 398 thousand rubles from motorists while serving on the 1056th kilometer of the M-4 Don highway from August to December 2021.
Two more active, but suspended from work for the duration of the investigation, employees of the same battalion – senior inspector Alexei Perepelitsa and inspector Dmitry Kolesnikov – were suspected of a similar crime (part 5 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
According to investigators, in one day in November 2021 they received at least 123 thousand rubles. from drivers who violated the administrative law.
All mentioned ex-policemen are taken into custody.
The disclosure of the first episodes of abuse by employees of the Donskoy separate battalion of the TFR and the Ministry of Internal Affairs was reported a year ago. As Irina Volk, the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, explained at the time, the participants in the scheme, among other things, took pictures of passing cars and, using a graphic editor, created “fictitious evidence of violations of traffic rules by drivers.”
“Then they transmitted these images to traffic police inspectors who were several kilometers away along the route of the vehicles. Those, in turn, stopped vehicles and informed citizens about the commission of administrative offenses, and sometimes even criminal offenses,” said Ms. Volk. According to her, under the pressure of fabricated evidence, drivers handed over from 5,000 to 500,000 rubles to the traffic police.
