Deputy Chief of Russia's Prison Service Arrested for Stealing a Road

Yes a road , not a small road either but a 50km length of highway , you've got to admire his ambition !

Acting deputy chief Alexander Protopopov was arrested on Wednesday and charged with stealing the road from the far-northern Komi region , presumably someone noticed it had gone.
Mr Protopopov was head of the regions prison servie from 2010 to 2015 with the road being nicked between 2014 and 2015.
As yet it's unclear who purchased the road but they're sure to claim the bought it from a guy down the pub.

Police said Alexander Protopopov, acting deputy chief of Russia's prison service, oversaw the dismantling of the road in the far-northern Komi region.
He then sold off its 7,000 reinforced concrete slabs for personal profit, they added.
Officials believe the scheme cost the government more than 6m roubles ($79,000; £54,000).
The road was "dismantled and driven away" over the period of more than a year, between 2014 and 2015, the Investigative Committee said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency.
www.bbc.co.uk...

You couldn't make it up.

a reply to: gortex

Brilliant. To go through all of that trouble... wow. I'm thoroughly impressed. I bet he was half a bottle deep when he made the decision to start dismantling and re-selling concrete pieces of roadway lol

a reply to: gortex

The Roadnapper himself:

(kind of looks like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys in this pic, haha)

lol ..........A Road! ............lololololol He would have had better luck robbing a bank!!!!! LOL!

a reply to: gortex
At first I thought I saw your title wrong. Stealing a road? That's a new one.

a reply to: gortex

Maybe he wanted to present it to Sarah Palin so they could finally get a 'bridge that goes somewhere'.

.

~Tenth

£54000 for 50 km of highway? We need some Russian contractors. We pay millions to build a roundabout.

a reply to: gortex

What are you in for?

I stole a road.

a reply to: gortex

Wow... This must have been one for the "you couldn't make this stuff up" department.

Who....who does that? Who thinks "Well damn, my government job does not pay me enough, I reckon I will just steal a large stretch of infrastructure!"? Did he REALLY think he would get away with it?

a reply to: TrueBrit

Did he REALLY think he would get away with it?

It is Russia so he has probably done it before.

I guess that was a road that really wasn't needed to begin with, since well, obviously no one used it or else some one would have noticed it was disappearing and compained...
or are they still too afraid to complain in russia....

"hey boss, sorry I can't make it to work today!! someone stole my road!!"
never in a million years.....
okay... different countries, different cultures, different insanities I guess.

a reply to: gortex



Wow.... Only in Russia could stealing a road be an actual thing.

It's been 5 minutes and I'm still laughing.

I can just imagine the puzzled look on the locals face;

"Honey, there was a road here last week, right?"