MOSCOW. Jan 17 (Interfax) - The former director of the Voentorg military department store and ex-head of the Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) publishing house, Marina Lopatina, has been accused of misappropriating 50 million rubles paid by the Russian Defense Ministry for bogus agent services.
Searches have been conducted and documents have been confiscated as part of the inquiry, a source close to the investigation told Interfax.
"As part of the large Oboronservice case, investigators are currently looking into possible misappropriation of 50 million rubles, which could have been stolen during the sale of stock in one of the divisions of the Krasnaya Zvezda publishing house, which belongs to Oboronservice," the source said.
Investigators have accused Lopatina, who was dismissed together with other suspects, including Expert legal support center head Yekaterina Smetanova, last December of masterminding the misappropriation of budget money paying for agent and legal support services allegedly provided during the sale of Voenizdat property, he said.
"At the end of last year, searches were conducted and certain items were confiscated, including the hard drives from personal computers used by certain employees of Voenizdat," the source said.
Lopatina is also under investigation for her possible involvement in misappropriating 1.5 billion rubles during acquisitions of food supplies for the Russian Armed Forces, he said.
Russian investigators announced in October 2012, that they were looking into possible fraudulent transactions involving real estate owned by Oboronservice, which is controlled by the Defense Ministry.
The illegal sale of 14 property items reportedly cost the state 6.7 billion rubles.
Seven criminal cases have been merged into one.
The largest two deal with possible abuses in Oboronservice and company Slavyanka.