A former senior executive of diversified conglomerate Sistema is accused of helping to embezzle 465 million rubles ($14 million) from tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s oil company Yukos.
The allegations are contained in a suit the Prosecutor General’s Office submitted to a Moscow court Monday.
Dmitry Lyubinin, Sistema’s vice president between 2001 and 2008, is accused of participating in a criminal scheme to launder the money, which had been transferred under the semblance of charity from Yukos’ bank accounts to the accounts of nongovernmental organizations and charitable foundations in the regions, according to a statement on the website of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Lyubinin allegedly participated in a criminal group organized by then-senior executives of Yukos-Moskva, the oil company’s managing firm, and helped arrange the transfer of the money, 20 million rubles of which found its way into his own bank accounts, the statement said.
According to the document, the scheme was launched in early 2004, when Yukos founder and former chief executive Khodorkovsky, who is now serving his second prison term for theft and money laundering and is due for release in 2017, was already in custody on suspicion of tax evasion.
The court will consider the suit in Lyubinin’s absence, since he fled abroad to avoid prosecution, the statement said.
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