It warned that Russian law enforcement structures were increasingly intertwined with the country’s organised crime scene and said the most popular job to be bought and sold on the black market was that of a traffic policeman.

It cost the equivalent of £32,000 pounds to “buy” a traffic cop’s job, it disclosed. Anyone with enough money to buy themself such a post is likely to recoup their money rapidly though.

Traffic policemen are loathed by ordinary Russians for their love of systematically extorting bribes or “fines” from motorists for turning a blind eye to real or imagined traffic infractions. Jobs in the state prosecutors’ service were also for sale, the report added, with the price tag for the relatively junior position of an aide to a district prosecutor “costing” the equivalent of 6,500 pounds.

The report, issued by an anti-graft group called Clean Hands, warned that the cost of bribes was spiralling. The average cost of a bribe doubled to the equivalent of £930 pounds by mid-2010 compared to six months earlier, it said.