MOSCOW, March 31 (RAPSI) – Former police officer from the Moscow Region Vadim Shavlokhov will stand trial on charges of receiving $100,000 in bribes from members of a gang allegedly involved in multiple murders, Alexander Kurennoy, a spokesman for Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office, told journalists on Friday.

Indictment has been approved in the case against Shavlokhov and sent to the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow for hearing, according to Kurennoy.

Shavlokhov has been charged with abuse of office and taking a large-scale bribe. According to investigation, in 2013, Shavlokhov, then major case detective of the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Investigation Department, gave Aslan Gagiyev, an alleged leader of the organized-crime syndicate, a document containing information on his criminal gang for $100,000.

Russian investigators claim that Georgian-born Aslan Gagiyev’s gang has been operating since 2004 and includes over 50 members.

Members of the gang have reportedly committed more than 60 murders in Moscow and North Ossetia, including murders of officials, law enforcement officers and businessmen.

Eighteen members of the gang have already received long prison terms; two of them have been sentenced to life.

Gagiyev who was arrested in Austria in January 2015 faces life sentence in Russia. On March 3, 2016, the Austrian court released him on bail of EUR 100 because hearing of extradition cases against him ran over time.