Russian police have arrested four top officials of the Eurasia Logistics company, Russia's major industrial and warehouse property developer, on charges of complicity in embezzling some $2 billion of Kazakh investments, a leading Russian business daily has said.
The loan provided by the Kazakh BTA bank was intended for various investment projects in Russia, including the building of a town in the Moscow Region, Kommersant said, quoting investigators.
The paper said the company's director general, Alexander Volkov, as well as financial and economics directors, Artyom Bondarenko and Alexei Belov, were detained in Moscow, while the head of the juridical department, Denis Vorotyntsev, was arrested in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, where he was on holidays. The arrests were reportedly sanctioned by a Moscow court.
Kommersant quoted Russian Interior Ministry's investigative committee officials as saying the embezzlement was organized by former BTA board chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov, who is on Kazakhstan's wanted list. The paper said a fraud case was to be initiated against Ablyazov in Russia as well.
Part of funds provided by the Kazakh bank was intended for the building of some 9.1 million square meters of real estate in the Moscow Region town of Konstantinovo by 2015. The construction plan included a business park, a large medial center, an academic campus, media and exhibition centers, as well as a race track.
The head of the Konstantinovo administration, Dmitry Gorodetsky, told Kommersant he was surprised by the arrests. He said the local authorities had successfully cooperated with Eurasia Logistics for five years, although construction had been frozen since the start of the economic crisis.
Eurasia Logistics, which is part of the Eurasia Global investment holding, was the leader in the Russian industrial and warehouse property market, as of late 2009.
MOSCOW, March 19 (RIA Novosti)
