Two suspects have been arrested on suspicion of attempting to sell senior positions in the Federal Security Service and other government agencies, Moscow police said Thursday.
One of the suspects presented himself as a colonel general who had retired from a career in foreign intelligence and claimed to have "wide-ranging connections in the highest echelons of the government," the said.
The other passed himself off as an adviser to the head of the presidential administration, police say. The pair allegedly offered the post of governor of the Altai region to a member of the gubernatorial candidate pool for 300,000 euros ($385,000).
The suspects also offered the post of department head of the fuel and energy complex of the Energy Ministry in the Moscow region to a businessman for 4 million rubles ($126,000), police say.
Another businessman was promised that his son would be placed in the central apparatus of the Federal Security Service for 300,000 euros.
The two men were detained in a Moscow restaurant while receiving a 1.6 million ruble payment for a post in the Energy Ministry.
They face charges of attempted large-scale fraud, which carries a maximum punishment of 10 years in prison.
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