Russian official tosses millions in cash onto road

Published on Monday 28 June 2010 15:57

A RUSSIAN fisheries official suspected of accepting bribes tossed ten million roubles (about £213,000) from his car after a police chase and a crash on a busy Moscow road, investigators said yesterday.

Pursued by police on Friday, Federal Fisheries Agency official Boris Simonov crashed his Cadillac and frantically flung the money into the wind, local media reported.

State-run First Channel TV showed scores of large-denomination rouble notes being collected by police beside a thoroughfare in south-central Moscow.

A spokesman for Russia's Investigative Committee said that Simonov's boss, Roman Postnikov, who oversaw the administration of two Moscow rivers, was arrested on suspicion of forging a contract that allowed a fishing firm to operate without the proper documents.

Both fishery officials will be jailed for two months pending further investigation, the committee said.

Reform-minded President Dmitry Medvedev has repeatedly vowed to tackle the endemic corruption among Russian public officials, saying that it stifles the country's economic development. Howeer, analysts say little has changed since he took office in May 2008.