MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) - About 30,000 crimes involving officials abusing their positions, half of which are bribery crimes, are registered in Russia annually, a senior Interior Ministry official said Tuesday.

"The problem of officials' crimes and corruption has always existed in Russia," Sergei Meshcheryakov, the head of the ministry's economic security department, said. "But we are not acting effectively to resolve this problem."

He said the Interior Ministry had formed special groups to tackle these crimes in all Russian regions.

Meshcheryakov's statement comes in the wake of the recent $1 million bribery scandal in Moscow that involved two senior officials of the Central Bank and Federal Tax Service.