News

The Altai Republic Office of the Investigative Committee is investigating a criminal case over fraud while selling a car owned by the town of Gorno-Altaisk and illegal confiscation of money meant to subsidize SME in the Altai Republic.

On 14 June 2016, mayor of Gorno-Altaisk Viktor Oblogin was charged with crimes under Part 4 of Article 159 of the RF Penal Code (fraud) and Part 2 of Article 286 (abuse of power).

According to investigators between April 2012 and August 2013 Oblogin stole the Toyota Landcruiser 120 owned by the town of Gorno-Altaisk and worth over 1.5 million rubles by falsifying documents. The municipality suffered the said sum worth of damage.

In addition, in 2011-2014, Oblogin organized that the funds allocated by the federal and regional budgets to subsidize SME in the Republic of Altai were illegally confiscated. Businessmen could only get subsidies if they agreed to return to the administration a share of it of at least 20%. This way, over the said period of time over 15 million rubles was illegally confiscated from the budgetary funding.

The mayor was detained right after pressing the charges. Considering the gravity of the crime, the age of the accused and some other circumstances, Oblogin is expected to be put under house arrest pending trial. The investigation continues.