The Khoroshevsky Court of Moscow sentenced the former deputy head of the Moscow customs, Sergei Tsukanov, who was found guilty of taking a bribe of 500,000 rubles. This money was handed over to him by representatives of Mekhovy Mir LLC for the speedy admission to the temporary customs control zone to the seized inventory items for their declaration. After receiving the money, Sergei Tsukanov was detained by the FSB. The court sentenced the former customs officer to five years in a strict regime colony, but did not impose the usual fine for corruption cases.
The wife and daughter of Sergei Tsukanov, as well as their acquaintances and former colleagues of the customs officer, arrived at the announcement of the verdict. True, we had to wait almost two hours for the start of the court session – due to a delay in the delivery of the defendant from the pre-trial detention center, in which Sergei Tsukanov has been located since October 2020.
On the eve of the debate, the prosecutors asked the court to find the former deputy head of the Moscow customs, Sergei Tsukanov, guilty of taking a large bribe by an official (paragraph “c” of part 5 of article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentence him to eight years in a strict regime colony.
In addition, the prosecution proposed to ban the former high-ranking customs officer from holding positions in state structures for five years after his release. At the same time, we note that the prosecutors did not demand the fine usually imposed in corruption criminal cases.
In their speeches, the public prosecutors briefly recalled the essence of the charge brought against Sergei Tsukanov. According to the materials of the criminal case, 500 thousand rubles. were intended for a customs officer for “accelerating the work of employees subordinate to him who were engaged in the inventory of goods previously seized by Fur World LLC, as well as assistance in obtaining permission for admission to the temporary zone of customs control to the seized commodity values by representatives of a trading company for their further customs declaration.”
According to Kommersant’s sources, shortly before that, fur products were seized in the warehouses of one of the shopping centers in Lyublino. The goods did not have accompanying documents explaining their origin, and there were also no obligatory QR codes.
According to prosecutors, the money was received by Sergei Tsukanov from a representative of the LLC on the evening of October 22, 2020, after which the customs officer was detained by the FSB as part of an operational experiment. The next day, at the request of the investigation, the court sent Sergei Tsukanov to a pre-trial detention center. The investigation into the bribery case lasted for exactly one year at the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Moscow, until mid-October 2021. After the approval of the indictment by the prosecutor’s office, the materials of the investigation were sent for consideration on the merits to the capital’s Khoroshevsky district court.
Neither during the investigation nor during the trial, the former customs officer did not admit his guilt: Sergei Tsukanov claimed that he was the victim of a provocation. During the debate, his lawyer Elena Sycheva asked the client to be acquitted.
However, the court considered the arguments of the prosecution convincing and found Sergei Tsukanov guilty of taking a bribe. The term of punishment, however, was assigned to the customs officer less than the prosecutors requested, five years in prison with serving in a strict regime colony.
The convict was also banned from holding positions in state bodies for five years.
Since Sergey Tsukanov must serve his sentence in a strict regime colony, the time spent under arrest will be counted for him according to the formula “one day in a pre-trial detention center – one day in a colony.” Taking into account the fact that the convict was in the pre-trial detention center for almost half of the term assigned to him, he will soon be able to apply for parole (PARO).
After the announcement of the court decision, lawyer Elena Sycheva did not comment on the results of the process, referring to the principles of lawyer ethics, but noted that “before applying for parole, it is necessary to go through all the stages of appealing the verdict.”