Russian car blogger arrested for fraud and assassination attempt

MOSCOW, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A well-known Russian street racer and blogger who exposed corruption among Moscow's traffic cops in a 2015 video documentary was arrested for fraud and attempted assassination, his attorney tweeted.

Erik "Daviditch" Kituashvili, founder of the online community Smotra.ru, was arrested on Monday and is being held on suspicion of fraud and involvement in the assassination of the president of the Republic of Ingushetia, Yunus-bek Bamatgireyevich Yevkurov, who was seriously injured in a car bomb attack in 2009.

Yanus-bek Bamatgireyevich Yevkurov, president of the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia, bordering Chechnya, was critically injured in the assassination attempt in June of 2009 when a car bomb exploded in his convoy, killing two of his bodyguards. Yevkurov blamed the attack on anti-Kremlin terrorists, and analysts said they considered the attack a significant escalation in the Islamist insurgency in the region.

The State Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow said that Kituashvili is accused of large-scale theft of money from an insurance company. According to the criminal complaint, Kituashvili staged a theft of eight expensive foreign cars and submitted false documents to the insurance company for a claim that totaled 1.35 million rubles.

Police executed a search warrant on Kituashvili's apartment shortly after the arrest.

About 100-150 people gathered at the Tver court in Moscow to protest the arrest, according to Mk.ru.

In late 2015 Kituashvili published a video documentary exposing corruption in Moscow's police traffic units. The video has more than 3.3 million views.