MOSCOW, August 27 (RIA Novosti) – Russian military prosecutors have uncovered yet another property scam by former senior Defense Ministry officials involving assets worth 5.8 billion rubles ($175 million), the Prosecutor General’s Office said Tuesday.
The chief suspect in the illegal sell-off of three land plots totaling 144 hectares (0.55 square miles) just outside Moscow is ex-ministry official Yevgenia Vasilyeva, formerly head of the Defense Ministry’s property management administration.
Vasilyeva supervised and saw through the deals, the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
She was previously charged, along with other suspects, in a 13 billion ruble ($433 million) fraud case involving the illegal sale of property, land and shares belonging to subsidiaries of the state-run Oboronservis holding company.
Military prosecutors have sent the results of their probe to the Investigative Committee to initiate criminal proceedings on abuse of office and embezzlement charges, the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
They have also filed three lawsuits with an arbitration court seeking the annulment of the deals in question.
The assets Vasilyeva was originally accused of embezzling included land in Moscow and Moscow Region, the Black Sea coast and an oil shipment terminal near Murmansk, prosecutors said.
She is currently under house arrest and her assets have been seized.
Oboronservis performs a variety of services relating to Defense Ministry property, including repair and maintenance of equipment and management of its real estate.
Other defendants in the case, which led to the dismissal of former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, are Yekaterina Smetanova, a former executive at Oboronservis, and her husband Maxim Zakutailo, former head of an Air Force base.
