Today's winner is from Russia.
Taking corruption to uncharted heights, a military official in central Russia has sold an airfield for a bribe.
Andrei Usok, a procurement officer with the Defense Ministry, sold to an unspecified company some 4,000 slabs of concrete making up the landing strip of a military airfield in Bryansk region, prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Usok made 1 million rubles ($33,000) on the deal, but the damages, which rendered the airfield unusable, stood at 48 million rubles, the Prosecutor General’s Office reported on its website.
The officer is facing up to 12 years behind bars or a fine of between 70 million and 90 million rubles over the case. The investigation is ongoing.
Ohhh-kaay . . .
I've heard reports of peculation, corruption and crookedness involving the illicit sale of all sorts of things from a great many military forces - tanks, trucks, guns, ammunition, even the odd aircraft or two . . . but an entire bloody airfield? One has to admire Mr. Usok's chutzpah, if nothing else! Just how did he think he was going to get away with it? It's not as if someone wouldn't notice, after all - the next plane to try to land there would be asking pointed questions about the whereabouts of the runway!
Peter
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