A former officer of the FSB in the Samara region, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Demin, admitted to stealing 68 BTC totaling 187 million rubles from a cybercriminal who was under investigation. The report appears in «Коммерсант».
According to investigators, in 2021 a case involving a hacker from Syzran, Anton Mochalov, who hacked computers to steal access to cryptocurrency wallets and other payment facilities, was assigned to Demin’s department.
Following the arrest, according to his testimony, the hacker voluntarily provided the security services with passwords, explaining how the system he created works. In the same period, Bitcoin disappeared from Mochalov’s personal wallet.
Demin, who came under suspicion, was detained and remanded in custody. He subsequently fully admitted guilt and offered the Main Military Prosecutor’s Office, which oversees the investigation, to testify against accomplices.
Despite the pre-trial cooperation agreement, the 235th Garrison Military Court in Moscow, which was handling the case, refused to release the officer, extending his detention.
Additionally, during the proceedings against Mochalov, another former investigator of the same department, Maksim Zhizhkun, extorted another 25 million rubles in cash from the hacker, promising to allegedly “hide the money from law enforcement and criminal groups.” Zhizhkun was sentenced to five years in prison with a 500,000 ruble fine and a two-year ban from holding certain positions.
The hacker himself was found guilty of creating and distributing malicious software. He received one year of probation.
In June, Moscow investigator Marat Tambiev was accused of taking bribes from members of the hacker group Infraud Organization for not freezing their assets.
According to media reports, at the time of the arrest in April 2022, the hackers provided access to ten crypto wallets with a total balance amounting to 2064 BTC. Subsequently, all assets were withdrawn from the wallets.