The Prosecutor General’s Office has approved the indictment in the case of embezzlement of 454 million rubles allocated to clean up the Kronotsky Reserve in Kamchatka. This was announced on February 2 by the Office of the Prosecutor General’s Office for the Far Eastern Federal District.
“Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Dmitry Demeshin approved the indictment in a criminal case against six members of an organized group who stole more than 454 million rubles allocated by the Federal State Budgetary Institution Kronotsky State Reserve for the elimination of waste of anthropogenic activity,” RIA Novosti reports.
According to the investigation, the ex-director of the reserve, together with four subordinates and an entrepreneur, in 2015-2016, through a controlled organization, squandered budget funds allocated for cleaning up pollution. They “created the appearance of utilization” of waste, actually burying them in the specially protected protected area of Kamchatka, included in the World Heritage List.
Members of the group are charged under Part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Embezzlement committed with the use of his official position, by an organized group, on an especially large scale”). The criminal case will be sent to the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court for consideration on the merits.
In addition, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the former director of the reserve, as well as two of his subordinates, stole 16.8 million rubles when buying a boat at an inflated cost, which was actually in use by the institution before the deal was concluded.
On February 1, it was reported that the prosecutor’s office of the Primorsky Territory approved the indictment in a criminal case of abuse of power against the former head of Vladivostok Igor Pushkarev.