A Dagestani official has been arrested in connection with a land fraud case.

The Sovetsky District Court of Makhachkala has remanded the former head of the territorial office of the Federal Property Management Agency (Rosimushchestvo) in Dagestan in custody for two months. Investigators estimate the damage caused by the official's actions at 16.5 million rubles.

As reported by Kavkazsky Knot, the former head of the territorial office of the Federal Property Management Agency (Rosimushchestvo) has been arrested in Dagestan, suspected of illegally leasing and transferring ownership of a land plot. According to investigators, from 2021 to 2024, the official made illegal decisions to lease and then transfer ownership of federally owned land to citizens without subsoil use licenses.

According to investigators, in 2021, the suspect, in the absence of a subsoil use license, illegally issued an order granting him a land plot for lease without a bidding process, with permission to use it "for an oil well."

The land was later leased to another individual, also without the appropriate license, and in January 2024, the plot was purchased using the illegal order issued by the suspect. According to investigators, the official's actions caused damages amounting to 16.5 million rubles, the Dagestan court press service reported today on Telegram.

The official is suspected of abuse of office 1 . "After reviewing the petition, the court ordered the suspect to be remanded in custody for two months, or until March 24, 2026," the court said in a statement.

The suspect's name was not provided in the statement. According to publications on the Telegram channel of the territorial administration of the Federal Property Management Agency (TP) in Dagestan, Umakhan Abakarov headed the agency in 2023.

On November 15, 2021, RIA Derbent reported that Umakhan Abakarov, who replaced Abdulpatakh Amirkhanov, headed the TP of the Federal Property Management Agency in Dagestan as acting head.

On September 9, 2025, the publication Dagestanskaya Pravda reported that Umakhan Abakarov had left his position as head of the TP of the Federal Property Management Agency in Dagestan.

"Caucasian Knot" wrote that former acting mayor of Makhachkala Magomed Suleimanov was charged under the same criminal article. According to investigators, Suleimanov In 2016, he signed a decree transferring a land plot at a reduced price to the ownership of Daggaz OJSC. Based on this decree, the plot, with a cadastral value of over 96 million rubles, was sold.

However, the court concluded that Suleimanov had no intent or personal interest in selling the land plot, and that he had made the decision to transfer the plot legally. As a result, on July 5, 2022, the court fully acquitted Suleimanov.

Suleimanov's acquittal angered the head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, who considered this decision contrary to the ideas of fairness and the inevitability of punishment.