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Court hearings have begun in a criminal case against employees of the Federal Customs Service of Russia

In the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow, preliminary hearings have begun in a criminal case against Alexander Kizlyk, the head of the Department of Customs Investigations and Inquiries of the FCS of Russia, his deputy Alexei Serebro, deputy head of the Vnukovo customs of the FCS of Russia Konstantin Mishin, the former deputy head of the Domodedovo customs of the FCS of Russia Yuri Cherkash and Andrei Shurygin, former senior investigator for particularly important cases of the investigation department of the Domodedovo customs of the FCS of Russia. They are accused of committing an offence under Part 3 of Article 285 of the Criminal Code of Russia (abuse of authority). The investigation of this case was carried out by the Main Investigations Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia.

According to the investigation, in 2019, the accused, abusing their official powers, illegally released from criminal liability two persons convicted of smuggling foreign currency in cash for a total amount at the rate of the Bank of Russia of more than 25 million rubles. This led to the illegal return of funds previously seized by customs officials.

During the inquiry, the investigation established the expensive real estate of Kizlyk in the Moscow region. During a search at his place of residence, funds, jewellery, gold bars, luxury watches, icons of historical value, and other values were seized from him. The total cost of the property is over 150 million rubles. This is many times higher than the income of Kizlyk for the entire period of service, which is a violation of anti-corruption legislation. Considering the discovery and seizure of the property of the accused by the investigation, the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation appealed to the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow and a claim for his conversion to state revenue, which was satisfied.

The court will examine all the materials presented in the criminal case on the involvement of the perpetrators in the alleged crimes.