The City Prosecutor's Office has asked the Moscow property department to recover through court a part of the Varshavskaya metro station lobby, which had been illegally privatized, Interfax reported Thursday.
The prosecutors checked the information that appeared in the media on the illegal privatization of the area, which used to belong to the state-owned metro system.
"It has been confirmed that Metro-Servis+ has used a part of the Varshavskaya metro station lobby on the Kakhovskaya line for a period of 10 years without any outside control," the City Prosecutor's Office said. "The businessmen used counterfeit documents to register an area of 300 square meters as their property. Only in January 2013 did the management of the Moscow metro turn to the police with a complaint regarding the theft of government property."
The authorities have initiated a criminal case under Article 159 of the Criminal Code (large fraud committed by an organized crime group).
"However, the Moscow property department, which is responsible for exercising control over the use and safety of the Moscow metro's property, did not turn to justice in order to protect its violated rights," the prosecutors told Interfax.
The prosecutors asked the head of the property department, Vladimir Yefimov, to address the violations. They demanded that comprehensive measures be taken to recover the property.
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