In Russia, which has recently enacted positive laws on cryptocurrencies and signed the law on mining by President Putin, inspections continue strictly. Finally, a state official who took a bribe with Bitcoin was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

“Retirement” dreams gone

It was stated that a state official named Marat Tambiyev accepted 1032 BTC, worth close to $65 million today, as a bribe from a hacker group in 2022. The official, who detected the activities of the hacker group, took half of the BTC seized by the group as a bribe and did not report the incident to the necessary authorities.

However, a file that this state official kept on his computer gave him away. During the checks, a file called ‘Pension’ was found on the computer used by the official and it was seen that BTCs were stored here.

When this person’s salary and annual earnings were calculated, an amount close to impossible made the auditors suspicious and eventually the incident was revealed.

BTCs purchased on April 7, 2022 were worth about $50 million at that time.

Tambiyev said he had been framed and appealed the sentence. Another employee who assisted in the same case was sentenced to 9 years in prison.