Former Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, Marat Oganesyan, has been detained in Moscow on suspicion of fraud, the press service of the Russian Investigative Committee said.
"The Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg has apprehended former Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg, Marat Oganesyan, as part of a criminal investigation into fraud during the construction of a football stadium on Krestovsky Island," TASS cited the Investigative Committee as saying.
In the course of the investigation, investigators, in collaboration with the regional department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Interior Ministry’s Economic Security and Anti-Corruption Department established the theft of funds in 2014 in the amount of over 50 million rubles ($762,000) during inking a deal between main contractor, Transstroi company, and the TDM joint-stock company on supplying a scoreboard for the football stadium.
Investigators earlier established the involvement in the crime of Alexander Yanchik, the former First Deputy Chairman of the St. Petersburg City Administration’s Construction Committee, who signed the papers on the advance payments transfer and Grigory Popov who actually managed the TDM joint-stock company. Their accomplices have been identified as well. These are employees of this joint-stock company, Yelena Kovalyova and Artyom Kuspits.
"Yanchik, Popov and Kovalyova are actively cooperating with the investigation. Custody was chosen as a pre-trial measure for Kuspits who does not admit his guilt," the Investigative Committee said.
Searches are currently underway in Oganesyan’s apartments in Moscow and the Moscow region. The issue of filing a petition in court on imposing a pre-trial restraint for him will be addressed soon.
