Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has dropped a case against six organizers of a clandestine gambling ring in the Moscow region that was at the center of a scandal two years ago involving alleged payoffs to senior prosecutors and local police.
A request by the defendants for “economic amnesty” was granted by the Investigative Committee and forwarded to the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The six men were originally charged with running an “illegal business” before new regulations governing illegal gambling appeared after their arrest. Illegal business charges fell under an economic amnesty announced in 2013.
But the case against the defendants had all but collapsed not long after they were taken into custody when the Prosecutor General’s Office argued that the arrests were themselves illegal.
Charges are still pending in the case public prosecutors accused of providing protection for the operation.
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