Belarusian border guards in Minsk detained a Russian official convicted of bribes Igor Bestuzhy… The former mayor of Stavropol was sentenced in Russia to imprisonment for corruption, but managed to escape from law enforcement after parole. Bestuzhiy wanted to fly from Minsk to Istanbul with a forged passport and was detained.
International airport of the city of Minsk. The camera captures the work of an employee of the border control department of the air harbor of the Belarusian capital. A silhouette is behind the armored glass. The man went to the window to go through the standard procedure when traveling abroad. But the girl is in no hurry to put a stamp in her passport – the document raises her doubts. As it turned out, it was no coincidence.
“During border control, he presented the Belarusian border guards with a foreign passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation in someone else’s name with signs of partial forgery. Later, a valid internal Russian passport in his name was found on the detainee,” said Anton Bychkovsky, an official representative of the State Border Committee of the Republic of Belarus.
The man who tried to fly to Turkey using a forged document turned out to be the notorious former mayor of Stavropol, Igor Bestuzhiy. The very fact of his appearance in Minsk is already a kind of sensation – after all, according to the court’s verdict, the former mayor is still sitting and sitting. In 2014, he was found guilty of extorting a large bribe. The court sentenced him to nine years in prison. The former official was supposed to be released in 2023. But it turned out that a few years ago, for his conscientious work, Bestuzhy was transferred from a strict regime colony (where he worked as a librarian) to a colony-settlement, and recently he was completely released on parole. He was prohibited from traveling abroad. But apparently the ex-official was so impatient to go on a trip that he even decided to fly with a fake passport through a neighboring country.
Journalists from the program “Investigation of Eduard Petrov” spoke about the criminal case of the former mayor. Film with the self-explanatory name “Golden Signature” was dedicated to officials who sold their “visa” on documents for a bribe. For example, back in 2012, Mayor Bestuzhiy demanded 500 million rubles for the lease of a land plot in municipal ownership. Local businessmen handed over the money to Igor Bestuzhy’s assistant Leonid Kozlov. The criminal deal took place right next to the police post in the building of the administration of the Stavropol Territory. An accomplice of Bestuzhy Kozlov even joked loudly on this topic.
After the scandal at the Minsk airport, Igor Bestuzhiy, released on parole, risks ending up in prison again for violating the conditions of release. In addition, a criminal case has already been opened against him in the Republic of Belarus. For forging documents, he faces a term of up to two years in prison.
Now this case is being dealt with by the Investigative Committee of the neighboring state. True, local detectives have not given any comments yet. It is not yet entirely clear where the ex-mayor is now, who planned to either go on vacation or flee abroad.
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