MOSCOW, July 11 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has upheld extended detention of DS-Bank’s ex-head Fyodor Tsyrulnik and other defendant in the case Vitaly Vergizov charged with embezzling 585 million rubles (nearly $10 million) from the bank, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

An appeal against of Basmanny District Court’s ruling extending detention of the defendants has been filed by lawyers of Vergizov, who asked to release him on bail.

According to investigators, in April 2016, members of an organized criminal group consisting of DS-Bank’s top managers and employees, being aware of banking violations and imminent revocation of the bank’s license, transferred 585 million rubles to sham companies. This sum constituted the entirety of the bank’s correspondent account.

Shortly before this move alleged criminals cancelled processing of client-oriented banking operations under the pretense of experiencing technical difficulties, investigators added, noting that the bank’s servers were damaged while all documents and registries were transported away from the office.

DS-Bank’s license was revoked in May 2016, and investigators believe that Tsyrulnik has resided in the Republic of Mauritius since then. Other defendants in the case are chairman of the bank’s board Igor Sinyukhin, head of the credit department Alexander Vdovin, the board’s member Viktor Averin and unemployed persons, Vitaly Vergizov and Andrey Kuznetsov.