MOSCOW, November 29 (RIA Novosti) – Investigators launched a large-scale raid in the Yekaterinburg Region on Wednesday as part of a criminal case involving the illegal loan of more than 3 billion rubles ($96.4 million), the local Interior Ministry said Thursday.

The case involves an organize crime group whose members secured 11 loans in private and commercial banks in the region after providing documents detailing either nonexistent or already registered assets, police said. Taken together, the loans added up to more than 3 billion rubles.

The Interior Ministry added that police seized documents of “important probative value.”

Nine suspected members of the group, including its suspected leader, Andrei Palferov, have already been arrested. Palferov was arrested in Moscow last May.

Russia’s Criminal Code stipulates that large-scale fraud carries a prison term of up to ten years.