Former Bank of Moscow Managers in $30.5 mln Currency Scam

May 31, 2011- The former senior executives of the Bank of Moscow could have cost the bank more than one billion rubles ($30.5 million) through fictitious foreign exchange transactions, the investigation department of the Russian Interior Ministry said on Thursday.
 “According to investigators, in the period of 2009-2010 a number of former executives and employees of the bank, using their official position, have entered into more than 300 bogus contracts for buying and selling foreign currency, illegally obtaining the difference between the rates of the ruble,” the statement said.
According to authorities, the value of the bogus conversion transactions exceeds one billion rubles.  New suspects have been named in the Bank of Moscow embezzlement case, including ex-Vice President Alexei Sytnikov, Kommersant newspaper reported on Thursday.
Former Bank of Moscow president, Andrei Borodin, and his former deputy, Dmitry Akulinin, formerly the two most senior managers of the Bank of Moscow, were placed on an Interpol wanted list after a criminal case was opened against them, in late 2010, on charges of fraud involving government funds, and money laundering.
They are accused of illegally lending $443 million to shell companies which then transferred the funds to Yelena Baturina, the wife of Moscow’s former Mayor Yury Luzhkov, and former owner of the construction empire Inteco.  Another case was opened against them in February this year on suspicion of stealing over $225 million.

 SOURCES : RIA Novosti