MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) - The Moscow Prosecutor's Office has charged a senior tax official and a Central Bank official with taking a $1 million bribe, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office said Wednesday.
A Moscow court is currently deciding the terms of custody for Oleg Alexeyev from the Federal Tax Service and Alexei Mishin from the Central Bank's main Moscow division.
Ilya Malofeyev, a senior investigator with the prosecutor's office, said more arrests might follow. "Investigators will inquire into other peoples' involvement in this crime."
Since the investigation is pending, Malofeyev would not name the bank that had offered the bribe, only saying it was a large commercial bank, nor did he reveal the size of the tax claim against the bank.
The Federal Security Service and the Tax Service arrested the two officials in the Balchug Kempinski hotel in central Moscow Tuesday. Prosecutors said the two detainees had demanded a bribe from the board chairman of a Moscow bank in exchange for "protecting the bank's interests concerning claims made by tax authorities."
