Corruption in Russia is widespread and involves the Kremlin and other leading officials, leaked secret diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks website allege.

The main allegations are made by Spanish prosecutor Jose Gonzalez, an expert on Russian organized crime groups in his homeland.

The cables, published by the British paper The Guardian, reveal that Gonzalez told U.S. officials at a briefing in January that Russia was a "virtual mafia state."

“One cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and OC [organized crime] groups,” he said, adding that wiretaps complied over the course of a decade backed up his claims.

A cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow reports that Gonzalez also said that organized crime in Russia exercises “tremendous control” over the global economy.

He went on to say that he believed the Federal Security Service (FSB) is “absorbing” organized crime.

The cables also include statements by the U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, who quotes an unnamed source as saying "Everything depends on the Kremlin … [former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov], as well as many mayors and governors, pay off key insiders in the Kremlin."

"Luzhkov oversees a system in which it appears that almost everyone at every level is involved in some form of corruption or criminal behavior,” Beyrle told the U.S. State Department.

In cables from the former U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, an unnamed opposition leader is quoted as claiming that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appointed the current president, Dmitry Medvedev, as his successor to ensure he would not face prosecution over “alleged illicit proceeds.”

The cable said Putin was “afraid” of Medvedev’s then rival for the presidency, Sergei Ivanov, and that he “needed a weaker figure to succeed him instead.”

“Putin understands that under the system he has created there is no real rule of law and that at any time anyone can be arrested or businesses destroyed,” the opposition leader was also quoted as saying.

 MOSCOW, December 2 (RIA Novosti)