A total of 22 million rubles ($707,000) have been stolen from a bank in northern Moscow and replaced with fake banknotes, a police source said on Tuesday.
Bank employees discovered thousands of fake ruble, dollar and euro banknotes instead of real cash in the bank’s safe vault on Monday afternoon, the source said.
A criminal case has been opened into the theft, with criminals, who remain at large, facing up to 10 years in prison.
Another bank, in Russia’s Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, was robbed late on Monday, a local police spokesman said.
Three masked men armed with a pistol and an axe broke into the bank late on Monday afternoon, he said.
A sum of money equivalent to more than $82,000 was stolen from the bank, a police source said. A criminal investigation has been opened and the perpetrators would receive up to 10 years in prison if caught, he added.
