One of the world's richest people, media tycoon Aleksandr Lebedev, is selling off most of his multi-billion dollar empire to pursue a political career.

The businessman and owner of the UK's Independent newspaper is planning join Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's Popular Front “to help the country to get rid of the corruption that penetrates Russia’s financial system.”

“I think there’s a dispute inside the front,” Lebedev told RT. “United Russia wants to control everything and is looking to broaden its social base. Of course, I’m not looking into joining the United Russia, but something specific, such as anti-corruption investigations.”

This implies, however, that Lebedev will leave all the business ventures he is currently involved in.

The biggest gem among them is the National Reserve Corporation, a financial and industrial holding company with assets in Russia and Ukraine. Lebedev said he is currently negotiating the deal with Forbes businessmen, but thus far no one has shown any interest in buying his shares (56 percent). If no one agrees to buy them, the shares will be sold in pieces, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported.

The businessman also plans to merge The Independent newspaper and the Novaya Gazeta paper. The concept behind the new project is not yet clear, but Lebedev already said he wanted both papers to have a two-language interface. It is also possible that his papers will publish special journalistic investigations into corruption cases, the Gazeta.ru online paper reported.

Lebedev also promised to grant a high radio frequency he owns to the BBC Russian service (which gave up its radio broadcast due to financial problems) and to Radio Svoboda Russian, which is currently broadcasting on a medium frequency.

In tune with his new anti-corruption image, the tycoon has already made a couple of revelations.

Lebedev recorded and published a video on his internet blog accusing generals of the State Security Service of covering up money laundering operations. After that, Lebedev claims, his business was “bullied” by Russian law enforcers.

The tycoon also published an open letter to the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service outlining a range of corruption schemes practiced in Russian banks which involve officials from the Federal Security Service and even the Russian Central Bank.

“With the help of these money-laundering organizations, more than $100 billion ended up in offshore accounts,” Lebedev wrote. “Everyone working in Russia’s banking is aware that there are some ‘untouchable’ banks.”

Lebedev told RT that he could come up with a larger letter within the next 10 days.

“Both Medvedev and Putin have just been improving the infrastructural side, the legislation,” Lebedev said. “But in reality, I don’t think corruption diminished to the extent we are looking for. For example, we are now looking into government procurements, which are not as transparent as we want them to be.”

Lebedev added that he is also very concerned with the amount of hypocrisy demonstrated by Russians officials.

“I would finally get rid of those special signals on cars,” Lebedev told RT. “I’d just leave them to the president and to the prime minister. I’ve seen many officials on TV taking these lights off their cars and then these signals somehow end up where they were.”