Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal case against the head of Russia's Postal Service, Dmitry Strashnov, accusing him of abusing his authority and receiving an enormous amount of money illegally.
Alexander Kurennoy, head of the supervisory authority, said the General Prosecutor's office sent case materials to federal investigators in order to open a case of abuse of authority against Strashnov and a case of negligence against two department heads in the Russian Communications Ministry, who are accused of agreeing to the illegal payment to Strashnov.
In June 2015, the prosecutors established that Strashnov was awarded a payment in the amount of 95.4 million rubles ($1.5 million), as a result of the service's financial and economic activities.
"Compensation calculations were carried out on the basis of the presented documents, including the amount received in the reporting period: a net profit in the amount of 1.2 billion rubles," a representative of the Prosecutor General said, alleging that the Postal Service was able to hide losses of 4 billion rubles. According to officials, Strashnov's should have earned only 3.2 million rubles ($49,000), based on the Postal Service's actual profits.
On Nov. 21, the Russian Postal Service announced that Dmitry Strashnov had been awarded a bonus of 95 million rubles. Strashnov's salary, taking into account state secrets and not including holiday pay, is officially set at 460,500 rubles a month ($85,000 a year).
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