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Russians Marvel at Anti-Corruption Cop’s $131 Million Cash Pile

  • Interior Ministry colonel held in graft investigation
  • 300 million euros also found in Swiss accounts, agency reports
The Kremlin buildings sit on Red Square seen through an archway in Moscow.

The Kremlin buildings sit on Red Square seen through an archway in Moscow.

Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

This probably wasn’t the kind of publicity for Russia’s campaign against corruption that the Kremlin might have wished for.

Russia’s Investigative Committee posted a picture of stacks of bills inside a safe after it seized 8.5 billion rubles ($131 million) in cash from a Moscow apartment. It said the money came from an apartment of Dmitry Zakharchenko, a police colonel who heads an anti-corruption unit within the Interior Ministry, providing an eye-opening example for Russians of the scale of alleged graft within the government system.