The chief of the Sverdlovsk branch of the Pension Fund was detained Thursday on charges linked to abuse of office for stealing about 1 billion rubles ($34.6 million) of pension money from the VEFK-Ural bank, the Interior Ministry said.
Sergei Dubinkin was detained on his way to a Yekaterinburg airport Thursday morning for a flight to Moscow, the ministry said in a statement. Law enforcement agencies suspect that Dubinkin’s accomplice was former board chairman of the bank, Olga Chechushkova, Interfax reported. If convicted, Dubinkin faces up to ten years in jail.
The Central Bank said earlier this week that it recovered 1.5 billion rubles stolen from the Pension Fund in a separate scam late last week.
(MT)
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