Former Mayor of Magas Detained in Grozny

Law enforcement officers of Ingushetia, together with Chechen police officers, detained former Mayor of Magas Usman Aushev in Grozny. He is a suspect in a criminal case on abuse of office and has been placed on the federal wanted list.

According to investigators, in January-February 2023, Aushev approved inflated estimates when concluding a contract for the repair and replacement of power supply networks in the capital of Ingushetia. The damage caused to the city budget was estimated at 1.99 million rubles.

Soon after this, Aushev resigned of his own free will and left the republic.

“After some time, employees of the republican Ministry of Internal Affairs discovered the fact of abuse of power and opened a criminal case,” the local police reported on their Telegram channel.

In May, Fortanga reported that Aushev had been placed on the federal wanted list. According to TASS, a criminal case against him was opened under two articles - abuse of power and fraud. Initially, the fact of theft of 2 million rubles of budget funds was revealed, but it turned out that this was only one episode of the case.

In September 2022, Aushev was brought to administrative responsibility for violating the contract system in the procurement sphere. He was fined 400 thousand rubles.

In October 2022, residents of Magas initiated a petition for the mayor's resignation. They pointed out the city's problems that he had not solved while in office. The initiators stated that the city head had turned Magas "into a trading market with many pavilions, presumably extracting a certain benefit from the numerous installations of retail outlets."