The police said that at the end of last year they had received a complaint from a Russian citizen holding a permit for temporary residence in Latvia. The victim said that someone claiming to be an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service wanted to extort €50,000 from him.
The extortionist was detained on January 9 when he arrived in Latvia to collect the money. He was caught when accepting from the victim the first payment in the amount of €10,000. A possibly fake ID of an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service was found in the accommodation where the suspect was staying in Riga.
The suspect is a 33-year-old Russian citizen. He has been taken into custody, and a criminal proceeding has been started over extortion.