Chief Investigator Names Police and Municipal Clerks as Most ‘Corruption Prone’ Professions in Russia

But also investigated anti-corruption officials for corruption

Corruption is Everywhere - Certainly in Russia

© Global Look Press

The head of the Russian Investigative Committee has revealed the latest statistics on corruption crime, which show that most cases involve law-enforcement agents, military servicemen, municipal clerks, teachers and doctors.

“Representatives of law-enforcement agencies, officials from municipal bodies and enterprises, people working in the spheres of education and healthcare, and also the military,” said Aleksandr Bastrykin, listing the professions most often involved in cases of corruption.

In an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the chairman of Russian federal agency that deals with high-profile crimes said that there were currently more than 7,000 people facing corruption charges. Of these, 845 worked for the Interior Ministry, 571 occupied posts in state and municipal bodies, 490 were military servicemen, 227 worked in science and education, and 221 worked in healthcare.

“Another 400 suspects are people to whom we had to apply a special mode of criminal trial. These used to work as prosecutors, judges, investigators, legal attorneys and the like. Some of them are quite senior officials, I don’t think that it makes sense to name them all, as we know their names from mass media,” Bastrykin added.

Corrupt anti-corruption officials

Russia was hit by several major corruption scandals in 2016. Among them was the arrest of Economy Minister Aleksey Ulyukayev on suspicion of taking a $2-million bribe from the CEO of the state-owned oil giant Rosneft. Also in 2016, investigators detained several top officials from the anti-corruption directorate of the Interior Ministry, following an incident in which they found over $122 million in cash in an apartment linked to one of the officials.

No reference here to the systemic doping scandal that got Russia kicked out of the next Olympic Games. It is both hopeful and alarming that 7,000 people have been charged and that some are even senior officials. But the corruption at the highest levels of Russian society and government is not likely to be cleaned up in my lifetime.

Is this a consequence of 70 years of godless communism, or was there this much corruption before the revolution?