Three Charged in $6.3 Mln Nuclear Arms Complex Fraud

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RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED April 04, 2012

Three individuals working in Russia's nuclear arms complex face fraud charges over a scheme to embezzle 190 million rubles ($6.3 mln) of public funds, the Russian Interior Ministry's anti-corruption committee said on Tuesday.

The Defense Ministry paid a total of $8.6 million to a contractor for construction and maintenance work on a seismic monitoring site in Krasnoyarsk Region, the committee said in a statement.

However, investigators found that work worth just $2.3 million was carried out and the rest of the money was pocketed by the three defendants.

The military commander, the head of the Defense Ministry’s engineering department and the director of the company have been charged with large-scale fraud, the anti-corruption committee said.

They face up to ten years in prison if found guilty.

The crime was carried out over the 2007-2010 period and resulted in three criminal cases being opened in the last two weeks, a spokesman for the committee told RIA Novosti.

Russia ranked 143rd out of 182 countries in the latest edition of the annual global corruption survey published in December by Transparency International.

Topics: Russia

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