Alexei Frenkel, 35, has already published two letters since his arrest January 11 on suspicion of organizing the murder of Central Bank Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov, 41, in mid-September last year, accusing the CBR of accepting bribes for entering banks into the deposit insurance system.
"Prosecutors have launched a probe into Frenkel's statements on corruption in the Central Bank," Igor Trunov said.
Media earlier reported that Frenkel, the former board chairman of the small privately-owned VIP-bank, whose license had been canceled three months before Kozlov's murder, said the Central Bank had differentiated between banks automatically eligible for the insurance system and others which had to pay huge kickbacks to be enrolled.
"Leading state-controlled banks, foreign lending organizations' subsidiaries and the banks that 'helped' [CBR] officials, active on the cash and 'non-standard' banking services market, were all in the former group," Frenkel wrote referring to illegal capital flight and tax evasion schemes allegedly carried out by Central Bank executives.
Other banks, Frenkel claimed, were given access to the insurance system only in exchange for kickbacks, which varied from $150,000 to $5 million according to the size of the bank.
Business daily Kommersant quoted Frenkel Monday as saying that the Central Bank's practices had led to the emergence of "an entire system of kickbacks which have reached an unprecedented scale in the last two or three years."
Moscow Interbank Currency Association President Alexei Mamontov, who handed the letter over to Kommersant, said Frenkel wrote both letters last summer, but delayed their publication for lack of substantiating documentary evidence. His arrest, however, prompted their publication.
Frenkel did not name officials allegedly involved in the illegal transactions and kickbacks, but cited details on the illegal schemes that would allow them to be tracked down. Mamontov crossed out the names of the banks in the letter, but they could easily be identified by the dates mentioned in it, Kommersant said.
The Central Bank has declined to comment on Frenkel's accusations.
Seven people have so far been detained in connection with the murder of Kozlov, widely described in the media as an honest official who led a crusade against money laundering and other criminal banking practices. Some of them have reportedly confessed to having been hired to kill the banking official.
