Russian law enforcement officials have frozen bank accounts and property owned by Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Pirumov, who is accused of embezzling funds allocated for restoring Russia's cultural heritage sites, the Interfax news agency reported Wednesday.
Investigators in the case against Pirumov froze his assets as part of “measures toward damage compensation,” an unidentified official said, Interfax reported.
“Pirumov's [bank] accounts and property have been frozen,” the official was quoted as saying. “We are talking about tens of millions of rubles (hundreds of thousands of dollars).”
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has charged Pirumov with masterminding a group that allegedly embezzled restoration funds by artificially inflating the costs of the work.
A number of government officials and heads of construction and restoration companies have also been arrested, Interfax reported.
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