Bailiffs have begun confiscating bitcoins from former Russian Investigative Committee employee Marat Tambiev as part of a large-scale bribe case. To do this, law enforcement officers gained access to his hardware cryptocurrency wallet Ledger Nano X.
So far, only 103 BTC worth almost 1 billion rubles (about $10 million) have been seized. This is only 4% of the total bribe. The confiscated funds will go to the state.
Marat Tambiev
Tambiev was arrested in March 2022 on charges of accepting a large bribe. At that time, law enforcement officers found private keys to a crypto wallet on his laptop, which was stored in a folder called “Retirement.” The hardware device contained 2718 bitcoins, which are now valued at about $258 million.
Investigators found that Tambiev received cryptocurrency as a bribe from a hacker group known as the Infraud Organization. The bitcoins were paid in exchange for stopping criminal prosecution of the group's members and the ability to hide crypto assets worth about 14 billion rubles ($138 million).
In 2023, the Nikulinsky District Court of Moscow ruled to confiscate 1032 BTC from Tambiev, as these assets were received as unconfirmed income. In October 2024, the former Investigative Committee employee was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
