A Russian energy mogul has become the latest to be found dead in mysterious circumstances after his body was discovered in a detention centre a day after appealing against an “unjust allegation” against him concerning bribery.

Igor Shkurko, 49, was the deputy director of Yakutskenergo, a Russian company based in eastern Siberia, who had ties to the pro-Putin United Russia political party.

He was facing expulsion from the party over claims he’d taken a £5,000 bribe. But his body was discovered in a detention cell.

Russian authorities provided no information on how Shkurko, who was a father of two, had died but the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement there were no signs it had been a “criminal death”.

He was arrested on March 30 on suspicion of taking a bribe of £5,000 and detained the following day at the “request” of investigating authorities, according to the local Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The day before he died, on April 4, he submitted an appeal calling the bribery accusations against him an “unjust allegation”.

Before his case could be heard, a “high-ranking source” reportedly confirmed to the website arcticpost.ru he had died.

He was in charge of the technical management side of Yakutskenergo, which supplies power to the world’s coldest region, Yakutia.

Prior to his most recent role, Shkurko served as a general director of a regional electrical company, and also served on Aldan district council.

He was also a member of the pro-Putin United Russia party, though he had been suspended pending the investigation into his alleged bribery.

“The issue of expulsion from the party will be decided after the case is considered in court,” Ruslan Platonov, from the Yakut regional branch of the United Russia party, said at the time.

Yakutskenergo issued a statement after his death saying: “We will remember him as an open, hospitable person with a big heart and a good sense of humour, the caring head of a close-knit family.”

The company’s chief executive, Alexey Struchkov, previously said the company was co-operating fully with the ongoing investigation into Shkurko.

The Russian Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement: ”On April 4, the accused was found in a cell of the pre-trial detention centre with no signs of life.

“Arriving medical workers ascertained his death. An investigative team was called to the scene. According to preliminary data, no signs of a criminal death were found.”

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Last month Novaya Gazeta Europe, a leading investigative news outlet, and Transparency International Russia, linked a series of suspicious deaths related to Gazprom to a complex “money-laundering scheme” benefiting a top gas executive’s family and his cronies from Putin’s security services and military.

Among susupious energy industry deaths were Alexander Tyulyakov, deputy head of corporate security at Gazprom’s United Settlement Centre, the energy giant’s “treasury”, who allegedly committed suicide the day after war was declared.

He died in Gazprom’s guarded Leninsky corporate village in Leningrad region, near St Petersburg on 25 February 2022. His body was reportedly discovered by his lover with his neck in a noose, although there are strong suspicions he did not take his own life.

A suicide note was found near the body of a man revealed as a former KGB and FSB officer, but his death has remained “mysterious”, said the report, not least since his body was “badly beaten” before death.

In April last year, Vladislav Avayev, 51, a former vice-president of Gazprombank, was also found dead in a flat in Moscow, next to the bodies of his wife and daughter.

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