New Assets Seized from Police Linked to WEX Bribery Scandal

Former employees of the BST of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, part of the K Department, Georgy Satyukov and Dmitry Sokolov, who are accused in absentia of accepting a bribe of 4.9 billion rubles in cryptocurrencies, have had new assets discovered. This was reported by Lenta.ru.

At the request of the Investigative Committee, courts have seized an apartment in the “Nezhinsky Ark” complex in the Ochakovo-Matveevskoye district of Moscow, as well as apartments in the “Scarlet Sails” residential complex on Aviatsionnaya Street, with a cadastral value exceeding 50 million rubles.

The former police officers primarily registered the real estate in the names of their partners and girlfriends.

According to the investigation, the accused imposed “protection” services on Alexey Bilyuchenko (Ivanov), the system administrator of the WEX cryptocurrency exchange. The “red admin,” who ended up in court for embezzling platform funds, made a deal with the Prosecutor General’s Office and disclosed the bribes.

From March 2019 to October 2021, through Sokolov’s mediation, Bilyuchenko transferred at least 2119.5265569864 BTC and 10,016 ETH to wallets controlled by Satyukov — a total equivalent of about 4.9 billion rubles.

The ex-police officers managed to flee abroad and have been placed on an international wanted list. The money received was distributed across dozens of accounts in several banks and invested in securities. It is noted that Sokolov owns apartments in the tallest skyscraper in Dubai, the “Burj Khalifa.”

In September 2023, Bilyuchenko was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison and fined 500,000 rubles. In March, the decision was upheld by the Moscow court.