An alleged British fugitive accused of attempting to defraud a bank of $1.5 million is being sought in Moscow after the U.K. branch of Interpol forwarded a warrant for his arrest to their Russian counterparts, a spokeswoman for Interpol said Thursday.


Andrew Rooke, 38, a former finance director at the Radisson Slavjanskaya Hotel, is wanted by London police "in connection with an offense of obtaining pecuniary advantage," a spokesman for the City of London Police said Thursday.


"We have forwarded information relating to his activities in London," said a spokeswoman for Interpol in London, who declined to be named, explaining that since there was no extradition treaty between Russia and Britain they technically could not send the warrant.


Rooke is living and working in Moscow and has kept a relatively high profile here. He is a director of a financial investment and accounting consultant company called DRM Consulting. People at his office said they expected him there Thursday, but he did not arrive. He could not be reached for comment.


Two American expatriates living in Moscow, Beverly Dwight and David Carter, were also recently accused of being fugitives from justice -- this time from the United States -- despite leading similarly open and prominent lives here.


Rooke has been in Moscow for "98 percent of the time" since he left his job at the Radisson last August, said Paul Tatum, a board member of the joint venture that runs the hotel, adding that he had seen Rooke in the hotel Wednesday morning.


Rooke's family is in England and he has traveled back and forth over the last few months despite the arrest warrant, acquaintances said. "He went back a couple of times to England to try it out," Tatum said.


The Moscow branch of Interpol refused to comment on whether or not they were acting on London's information about Rooke. The acting head of the Moscow branch, who also declined to give his name, said: "We can still do extradition on a case-by-case basis." He added that last year several people were extradited despite there being no relevant treaties.


"If we receive a formal application we will reply favorably," he said.


Rooke is wanted in Britain after he failed to appear at Middlesex Guildhall Crown Court in central London last June. The court issued a warrant for his arrest on the same day. "Our inquiries to date suggest that he is in Russia," the police spokesman said, adding that they had passed on the information to Interpol "with a view to taking our inquiries further."


Rooke appears to have left London in bad odor. He was dismissed from his job as operations manager at the London branch of Bayerische Landesbank Girozentrale, or BLG, in July 1993 for forging a letter in an attempt to obtain $1.5 million, a tribunal for the London Securities and Futures Authority found, with Rooke in absentia.


Rooke was expelled and fined ?25,000 ($38,750) for "blatant dishonesty" by the securities authority, which regulates the city's investment markets, an SFA spokesman said Thursday.


Rooke was found to have forged a letter to his solicitors from his employers saying the bank would be paying the money into his account. "BLG had not initiated any such payment and had no reason to do so," according to a statement by the securities authority.


During its investigations the securities authority found Rooke had given false and misleading information on his application forms to both the bank and the securities authority, with which he had registered.


Rooke claimed, without justification, to be a chartered accountant, to have seven school exam passes at 'A' level, to have Italian professional qualifications and actuarial and taxation qualifications, the tribunal found.


He had also deliberately concealed a recent criminal conviction, according to the tribunal. He was convicted by a criminal court in 1987 of eight offenses including obtaining property by deception, forgery and use of false documentation. A further eight offenses are pending.


"Mr. Rooke failed continually to make himself available for a hearing so the SFA tribunal finally passed a judgement while, we believe, he was in Russia and failed to return," the spokesman said.


"He seemed to be always running around being mystical," said Tatum, who is also president of the Americom Business Center. "He would present things in parables, he would give you 60 percent of the facts."


Friends expressed surprise at the news of Rooke's record and spoke highly of him as a friend and colleague. "He is articulate," said Russell Wycoff, a public relations consultant who worked for Americom at the Radisson when Rooke was there. "He is very polished, very intelligent, he has a high financial education and sells that to people," he said.


Umar Dzhabrailov, deputy general manager of the joint venture that runs the hotel and also a former colleague, said he and Rooke had decided to break off working together on projects for the time being.


"He has to prove that he does not have to be fined. He has not been sentenced. I advised him to defend himself and to go to the U.K. Even if he has made mistakes, everyone makes mistakes."