Associated Press - July 27, 2009 7:05 AM ET

MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's Interior Ministry says a court has released an alleged organized crime boss who is also wanted in the United States.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Dudukina said Monday a court released Semyon Mogilevich on an oath not to flee. She said Mogilevich was released Friday along with his business partner Vladimir Nekrasov.

The two men had been in custody since their arrest in January 2008 on tax evasion charges relating to a prominent chain of cosmetics stores. The court ruled Friday after their legal detention period expired.

The FBI has said that a crime ring run by Mogilevich in Budapest in the 1990s engaged in drug and weapons trafficking, among other things.

He has been on the FBI's wanted list since 2003 on charges of manipulating the stock of Pennsylvania-based company YBM Magnex Inc., which collapsed in 1998.

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