MOSCOW. June 19 (Interfax) - Two residents of Dagestan have been detained for raising 8 million rubles for the terrorist organization ISIL (banned in Russia), Russian Investigative Committee spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko told Interfax on Wednesday.
"Two men have been detained as a result of investigative operations in Moscow and the Moscow region on suspicion of a crime defined by Part 1, Article 205.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (aiding and abetting terrorism)," Petrenko said.
Given the gravity of the offense, investigators will ask the court to issue an arrest warrant, she said.
Russian citizens affiliated with ISIL and stationed in Syria organized funding of the terrorist activity in the period between 2014 and September 2017, Petrenko said.
"They recruited residents of Dagestan, who began raising donations in a number of Russian constituent territories using payment systems and bank cards and delivered the money to ISIL-held areas of Syria," she said.
The men raised at least 8 million rubles from over 200 contributors in the North Caucasus, Southern, Central, Northwestern, Siberian, and Urals federal districts, including persons indicted on terrorist counts, Petrenko said.
"Detectives of the Investigative Committee's branch in the North Caucasus Federal District collaborating with the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry are carrying out procedures, including searches of homes of the suspects and persons related to the financing of terrorism, in Moscow, the Moscow region, the Khanty-Mani Autonomous Region - Yugra, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Astrakhan region, the Stavropol Territory, and Dagestan," she said.
The involvement of another identified suspect in the crime is being verified, and active measures are being taken to find other accomplices, Petrenko said.