News

Saint-Petersburg main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has finished investigating a criminal case against Alexei Smirnov, Viktor Vitenko, Alexander Ratnikov and Svetlana Goryachikh. They are charged with a fraud committed by an organized group on an especially large scale and an attempted fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the RF Penal Code and part 3 of article 30, article 159).

According to investigators, in the period between 2011 and June 2012, the accused made documents to register legal entities, found citizens ready to act as their founders and CEOs, then prepared fictitious accounting documents, which they send to tax authorities on behalf of the said companies and got the right to get back VAT. This way they stole from the RF budget over 214 million rubles. The accused failed to steal another 315 million rubles as were held by the police in June 2012.

The investigators have gathered enough evidence, therefore, the criminal case with the approved indictment has been sent to court to be tried on the merits.