MOSCOW, September 8 (RAPSI, Yelizaveta Ponomareva) – The Moscow City Court has upheld a ruling to extend detention of two defendants in the case over embezzling 200 million rubles ($3.5 million) during the construction of the Mission Control Center’s facilities, the court’s press service told RAPSI on Friday.

Alexander Osipov and Kazbek Tebiyev charged with large scale embezzlement will stay jailed until November 1.

Reportedly, the Mission Control Center’s facilities were to be built as part of the Federal Space Program. According to case papers, a construction agreement worth 1 billion rubles ($17.5 million) was signed with Spetstroytehnologii, a subsidiary of the Federal Special Construction Agency (Spetsstroy), on July 29, 2013. Then head of the company Vladimir Shamailov conspired with his Emergency Ministry colleague Kazbek Tebiyev to make Osipov’s company Delta Story a subcontractor in the construction. The company received about 304 million rubles ($5.3 million) as a down payment.

According to investigators, the facilities were not built, and about 200 million rubles were transferred to the accounts of shell companies.