MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - The Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) will send the materials relating to the investigation into the criminal case against Ihor Kolomoisky, billionaire and governor of the Dnepropetrovsk region of Ukraine, to the Investigative Committee, FSKN Director Viktor Ivanov said.
"I have received an inquiry from the Russian Investigative Committee. We are taking these materials out of our criminal case and are sending them to the Investigative Committee of the criminal case against Kolomoisky," Ivanov told reporters in Moscow on Monday.
This decision is linked to the detention of several criminal groups that transferred money to PrivatBank, which is controlled by Kolomoisky.
"There are many such accounts. The question arises: is this the money used by Kolomoisky to violate the Minsk agreements?" Ivanov said.
According to earlier reports, the FSKN has recently completed the operation Karpaty, in which a group of criminals who sold synthetic drugs in Russia online was apprehended. Over fifty people involved in drug trafficking were then detained and over 100 kilos of highly concentrated synthetic drugs was seized.
"The proceeds from the drug sales went through various payment systems and financial organizations and were accumulated by the heads of the community in PrivatBank, which is owned by Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky," the FSKN said in a report.
Members of this criminal community trade in new psychoactive substances that caused mass poisonings in Russia's Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, the Kirov region, and in some other regions of Russia in September 2014, some of which proved fatal.
"Over 100 kilos of highly concentrated synthetic drugs have been seized. The drugs are worth over 800 million rubles in 'black market' prices," the report says.