WASHINGTON: US officials have opened an investigation into explosive allegations of a government orchestrated doping programme in Russia involving dozens of its top athletes, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.
The daily cited two people with knowledge of the inquiry by the Justice Department, which the Times said is being led by the United States attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York.
Prosecutors are investigating Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, anti-doping authorities and others who could stand to profit from an illicit doping scheme, said the Times.
US authorities are believed to be pursuing the conspiracy and fraud charges even though the case involves foreigners living outside the country, the report said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov questioned the validity of the probe.
"We have a certain scepticism and certain lack of understanding and difficulty accepting the quite widespread cases recently of the ex-territorial use of the jurisdiction of US courts," he told journalists.
However, sports minister Vitaly Mutko told TASS state news agency that he was not surprised by the opening of the US investigation.
"Of course it was not unexpected for us," Mutko said, likening the probe to the US investigation into corruption in the world football governing body FIFA. "This doesn't come as a revelation."
US federal courts allow prosecutors to bring cases against foreigners living abroad so long as there is at least a tenuous connection to the United States, the New York Times wrote, such as the use of an American bank.
The Times said federal prosecutors are expected to scrutinize anyone who might have facilitated unclean competition in the United States or used the US banking system to conduct a doping program.
News of the investigation follows reporting last week by the Times, as well as by CBS's 60 Minutes TV program, exposing a vast alleged Russia-run doping programme during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The Times published allegations from Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia's anti-doping laboratory in Sochi, asserting that dozens of Russian athletes, including at least 15 medalists, were involved in the drugs scandal.
Rodchenkov revealed an elaborate scheme in which up to 100 tainted urine samples were replaced with clean ones collected months before. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations.
Peskov on Wednesday urged the investigation to focus on individuals and "not to cast a shadow on our champions, on our athletes who take part in honest competitions."
The Russian sports ministry said in a statement that it "fully supports the IOC's (International Olympic Committee) actions to protect clean athletes."
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