3 suspects charged over alleged fraud in GLONASS programs

Three suspects in a criminal case opened into embezzlement during the realization of GLONASS programs have been charged with fraud, spokesman for the Investigative Committee (SK) Vladimir Markin said on Tuesday. The three suspects - Deputy director of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine-Building George Kovkov, Chief of the capital construction department of this organization Alexander Chernov and Director General of Federal Unitarian Construction Enterprise No. 5 Alexander Belov, have been charged with fraud punished by law (Part 4, Article 159 of the Russian Criminal Code), Markin said. In 2010 a total of 1.05 billion rubles were allocated from the federal budget for the reconstruction and technical innovation of block "100-1" of the Scientific Research Institute of Machine-Building based in the town of Korolyov in the Moscow region. The contractor to reconstruct the institute was the construction enterprise, headed by Alexander Belov, which built a monolith building allegedly with the use of costly technologies. The "costly" reconstruction was estimated at more than 147 million rubles, although no costly technologies declared had been actually used. The money appropriated as a result of the fraud was first remitted to the bank account of Special Construction Enterprise No. 5; then, the crooks stole the money from the bank account and used it for their own purposes, Markin said. The losses inflicted on the federal budget, which allocated the funds for the reconstruction at the request of the Federal Space Agency, totaled 107. 7 million rubles, which the Russian law treats as particular heavy embezzlement, Markin said.