TOMSK. Nov 16 (Interfax) - Competent Cypriot bodies extradited to Russia Natalya Konovalova, former director of Rekma V.G. LLP, who is charged with misappropriation and legalization of funds (money laundering) received illegally from OJSC Tomskneft VNK, the press service of the Russian Interior Ministry said in a report on Monday.
"It has been established that from March 2005 through February 2006, the company run by Konovalova acquired more than one million tonnes of crude oil at some undercharged rates from Tomskneft under the guise of sales as per fictitious contracts. The suspect further sold the resource at market price. The resulting difference amounted to more than 1.5 billion rubles," the report said.
The businesswoman then cashed the illegally obtained earnings, acting jointly with her accomplices in the crime, so as to use them later at her own discretion, it said.
The entrepreneur is charged with 'misappropriation' and "legalization of funds received as the result of committing a crime."
Konovalova was included in the Interpol wanted list at the request of Moscow's Main Investigative Directorate of the Russian Interior Ministry in December 2008 and was detained in Cyprus two years later, in December 2010.
The competent bodies of Cyprus accommodated the extradition request made by the Russian Prosecutor General's Office by handing Konovalova to officers of the National Interpol Bureau for Russia and Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service for her actual extradition to Moscow, the report said.
OJSC Tomskneft VNK, owned on a parity basis by Rosneft (MOEX: ROSN) and Gazprom Neft (MOEX: SIBN), holds 24 licenses for extraction of crude oil and natural gas, including 17 licenses in the Tomsk region and another seven licenses in the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District. The company owns nine licensed units for geological study and oil production and also acts as an agent in the development of two Rosneft license areas.