Deputy head of the Stavropol government detained for receiving 63 million rubles in bribes

Alexander Zolotarev was detained at the Stavropol airport while trying to escape. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

Investigators detained Deputy Prime Minister of the Stavropol Territory Alexander Zolotarev on suspicion of taking bribes worth 63 million rubles. This was reported to journalists on Friday at the press service of the RF IC.

“Today, on behalf of the investigator of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Stavropol Territory, Zolotarev was detained at the Stavropol airport while trying to escape,” the Investigative Committee said. In the near future, the Investigative Committee will send a petition to the court to impose a preventive measure on him in the form of detention.

According to the RF IC, Zolotarev has been suspected of taking bribes since 2017 for a total of 63 million rubles.

According to the investigation, in December 2017, Zolotarev entered into an agreement with Aleksey Kogarlytsky, who replaced the post of First Deputy Minister of Construction and Architecture of the Stavropol Territory, and received a bribe in the amount of 2.5 million rubles from a representative of the joint-stock company. For this money, the official promised patronage in the implementation of the state contract for the construction of a new building of the regional children’s clinical hospital in Stavropol. In 2018, Zolotarev, together with Kogarlytsky, received a bribe from a representative of the same legal entity in the amount of over 15.5 million rubles for patronage in the implementation of a state contract for the construction of a treatment and diagnostic building of the regional clinical cardiological dispensary in Stavropol.

In 2019, they again received a bribe in the amount of more than 45 million rubles from a representative of the same organization for patronage in the implementation of a state contract for the construction of a medical and diagnostic building of the Stavropol Regional Clinical Oncological Dispensary.

The criminal case is being investigated under Part 6 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Taking bribes on an especially large scale”). The official faces up to 15 years in prison.