MOSCOW. Oct 25 (Interfax) - Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov arrived on Thursday morning at the office of the company Oboronservice controlled by the ministry, where investigators are conducting a search under a criminal case dealing with alleged fraud and infliction of over 3-billion-ruble damage on the federal budget through the sale of under-priced government property, a law enforcement source told Interfax.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin had told Interfax earlier on Thursday that a team of investigators was working at Oboronservice under a criminal case dealing with fraud and infliction of over 3-billion-ruble damage on the federal budget, "including at the office of Yelena Vasilyeva, a former chief of the Defense Ministry's property relations department."
Investigators suspect that damage from the sale of under-priced real estate and stocks exceeded 3 billion rubles, he said.
Markin said "officials are being questioned, and other urgent investigative procedures are going on" under the criminal case.
The Investigative Committee's main military department has initiated five criminal cases into fraud during the sale of real estate, plots of land, and shares belonging to Oboronservice, he said.
The investigation believes that certain Defense Ministry officials first selected the most liquid and prestigious facilities, plots of land, and shares, including in Moscow, then large federal budget financing was poured into these assets, and then they were sold to commercial companies affiliated with Oboronservice at prices significantly lower than what they cost in reality, Markin said.
Moreover, many of these real estate assets were bought for money stolen from Oboronservice itself, he said.
"Preliminary damage from the sale of eight real estate assets alone exceeded 3 billion rubles," he said.