According to information received by Yle, a secretary at Finland's National Bureau of Investigation was ordered by a police official to add President Putin's name to a list of criminal suspects. The addition was made last November, shortly after he presented an award to a Russian motorcycle gang called the Night Wolves.
The list was obtained by Finland's MTV3, and corrected by police shortly after the news was published.
The Office of the State Prosecutor began a criminal investigation into the incident last week. Several suspects are being scrutinized.
"That this point, I believe that there are at most ten individuals. However, the situation is ongoing. This is the preliminary investigation, during which time an evaluation is being made of how many suspects there are in total," the head of the investigation, Anssi Hiivala, told Yle on Wednesday.
So far, it has been determined that the information that led to Putin mistakenly ending up on the list of criminal suspects held by the National Bureau of Investigation was all from published sources. The police official identified as giving the order is being questioned by investigators this week or next.
The investigation is looking not only at the legality of the listing of President Putin, but also how the classified police registry was leaked to the broadcaster MTV3.