MOSCOW, February 6 (RIA Novosti) – Police in Russia’s Far East said Thursday that they are investigating a group of suspects they believe mounted a $28.7 million fraud scheme while repairing navy warships.
Ilya Shamratov, deputy chief of police in the Primorye region, said investigators have initiated seven criminal cases connected with the Zvezda shipyard.
The head of the military’s Prosecutor Office announced in early November that fraud had been uncovered in the work on navy ships at the yard.
The office said a contractor was paid nearly $2 million based on an inflated invoice for repair work on one ship, which the newspaper Kommersant identified from a source as the k-419 Kuzbass nuclear submarine.
In late November, law enforcement officials seized documents during a search of the shipyard’s administrative offices.
Shamratov said that two suspects are giving statements to the police as part of a plea bargain.
