Alexei Frenkel, 35, has published two letters since his January 11 arrest on suspicion of organizing the murder of Central Bank Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov, 41, in mid-September last year, accusing the CBR of accepting bribes for entering banks into the deposit insurance system.
"Frenkel is satisfied that prosecutors are investigating his accusations of corruption in the Central Bank. He was questioned for seven hours on January 31," Igor Trunov said.
Media earlier reported that Frenkel, the former board chairman of the small privately-owned VIP-bank, whose license was revoked three months before Kozlov's death, said the Central Bank had differentiated between banks automatically eligible for the insurance system and others which had to pay huge kickbacks to be enrolled.
"Leading state-controlled banks, foreign lending organizations' subsidiaries and the banks that 'helped' [CBR] officials, active on the cash and 'non-standard' banking services market, were all in the former group," Frenkel wrote, in his accusations of illegal capital flight and tax evasion schemes carried out by banking regulators.
Other banks, Frenkel claimed, were given access to the insurance system only after paying hefty bribes, which varied from $150,000 to $5 million, according to the size of the bank.
The president of Moscow's Interbank Currency Association, Alexei Mamontov, who handed the letter over to business daily Kommersant, said Frenkel wrote both letters last summer, but delayed their publication due to a lack of substantiating documentary evidence. His arrest, however, prompted their publication.
Mamontov has been recently summoned to the Prosecutor General's Office for questioning over the publication of Frenkel's letters. He said he simply wanted to attract the attention of business circles and the media to poorly-written banking legislation, which leads to "a subjective approach" to certain banks on the part of the Central Bank.
In his letters, Frenkel did not name officials involved in the illegal transactions and kickbacks, but cited details on illegal schemes allowing them to be tracked down. Mamontov crossed out the names of the banks in the letter, but they could easily be identified by the dates mentioned in it, Kommersant said.
The Central Bank has declined to comment on Frenkel's accusations.
Frenkel's lawyer said Monday that a team of prosecutors questioning his client is not involved in the investigation of Kozlov's killing, but refused to comment on the nature of questions, citing his signed pledge not to reveal the details of the probe.
Seven people have so far been detained in connection with the murder of Kozlov, widely described in the media as an honest official who led a crusade against money laundering and other criminal banking practices. Some of them have reportedly confessed to having been hired to kill the official.
