Russia detains BP employee for commercial espionage

MOSCOW, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained two persons with Russian and U.S. citizenship as they were receiving "confidential information which constituted a commercial secret," Russian news agencies reported on Thursday.

"Moscow offices of TNK-BP and BP Trading were searched within the framework of this case on March 19," the FSB public relations department was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

The FSB identified the detainees as Zaslavsky brothers. One of them is manager of the Graduates Club projects under the British Council, and the other is an employee at Britain's TNK-BP Management.

The British embassy's press office was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying the Zaslavsky brothers are not employees of the British Council, though they are indeed members of the British Graduates Club.

Russian-British oil business joint venture TNK-BP has confirmed that Ilya Zaslavsky is the company's employee.

"We confirm that he is our employee and we learned about a criminal case instituted against him from a statement by the FSB Federal Security Service," said Alexander Shadrin, a TNK-BP spokesman.

"Our company gives assistance to law enforcers as stipulated bylaw," he said. "TNK-BP continues normal operations."

"TNK-BP is a commercial entity that operates in Russia in full compliance with legislation," Shadrin said. "We've always spoken against any illegal actions that may inflict damage on the Russian Federation and against unfair competition practices."

Ilya and Alexander Zaslavsky, both of them holding U.S. passports, were detained by the FSB's investigations committee on March 12 when they tried to obtain confidential data from a Russian citizen who worked for a "secure outlet" of the oil and gas industry, the Itar-Tass news agency said.