MOSCOW, December 18 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s lower house of parliament is set to consider a bill to stiffen penalties for bribes in foreign currencies, one of the legislature’s four factions said Wednesday.
“It’s more difficult to trace the origin and movement of foreign currency, and the physical size of bribes in foreign currency is smaller, simplifying the transfer process,” said Sergei Ivanov, the leader of the nationalist LDPR faction, which introduced the bill.
He also noted that by law all financial transactions in the country must be made in the national currency, the ruble.
On Tuesday, a former Moscow official convicted of corruption was fined $29 million, the largest fine in Russian history.
The new draft legislation calls for fines ranging from 60 to 90 times the size of the bribe, as well as imprisonment of five to 12 years.
Also on Wednesday, another parliamentary faction, the socialist A Just Russia party, submitted a bill to create an online “list of shame” that would publicly identify people convicted of corruption.
