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Tax police and Federal agency for government communication and information are abolished, FPS absorbed by the FSB

On March 11, 2003 Vladimir Putin, then Russian president, abolished the tax police (FSNP), electronic intelligence, the FAPSI and the border service (the FPS) as independent agencies. The latter was merely absorbed by the FSB.

It was quite simple because despite years of independence, the FPS failed to obtain its own headquarters and by 2003 it was still based in the same building in the Lubyanka it had been forced to share with the FSB.

As result, all officers of the tax police were sent to fill the ranks of the State Committee to counter the illegal circulation of drugs (FSKN), the completely new service to be led by Victor Cherkhessov, former KGB operative and close friend of Putin. Cherkhessov had become quite famous at the Lubyanka as the officer who started the last prosecution of dissidents in the Soviet Union. Neither the tax police nor Cherkhessov had any experience of fighting against drug dealers. Not surprisingly, the new Committee started with the prosecution of veterinarians for dealing in Ketamine and Moscovites for cultivating opium poppies (Papáver rhoéas) on their dachas.

The FAPSI's fate was even more disastrous: once the most powerful rival of the FSB, it was divided between the FSB and FSO (Federal Protective Service).