Irina Yegorova indicted in Oboronservice embezzlement case
MOSCOW. April 19 (Interfax) - Investigators have presented the official indictment against Irina Yegorova, another suspect in the case dealing with alleged embezzlements in the Oboronservice company affiliated with the Russian Defense Ministry.
"Irina Yegorova has been indicted for committing a crime described by Russian Criminal Code Article 159, Part 4 (massive fraud)," the Investigative Committee told Interfax on Friday.
Moscow's Khamovnichesky Court sanctioned Yegorova's arrest on April 12. The investigation found that Yegorova had registered four commercial organizations in Moscow and St. Petersburg in her name in 2012, in which she occupied positions of founder and general director.
"Over 100 million rubles was transferred to the accounts of the said organizations from Oboronservice's structures within a year. Part of this money was turned into cash and misappropriated, and the rest was transferred to accounts of other firms controlled" by Yegorova, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said.
It was reported in October 2012 that investigators were probing massive embezzlement in Oboronservice, an entity controlled by the Defense Ministry. The overall damage caused to the state has been estimated at several billion rubles. The Investigative Committee is handling two major criminal cases into financial irregularities in Defense Ministry affiliates, one of them concerning Oboronservice and the other the Slavyanka company.
Yekaterina Smetanova, the chief of the Expert legal support center, and her partner Maxim Zakutailo were earlier arrested under the Oboronservice case. Smetanova was later freed from detention with travel restrictions. Another defendant in the case is Yevgenia Vasilyeva, a former chief of the Defense Ministry property relations department, who has been charged with massive fraud (Russian Criminal Code Article 159, Part 3) and placed under house arrest.
In the Slavyanka case, police earlier detained Alexander Yelkin, the general director of Security and Communications company, Slavyanka's sub-contractor, Andrei Lugansky, who has been Slavyanka general director since April 2011, and Yulia Rotanova, the company's chief accountant.
Nikolai Ryabykh, an acting chief of the Defense Ministry logistics directorate, and Konstantin Lapshin, the director of the routine maintenance department at Slavyanka, have also been arrested on suspicion of corruption in the Defense Ministry system.
