MOSCOW, January 30 - RAPSI. The Moscow City Court has extended until May 18 the arrest of Energomash owner charged with the $418 million fraud.

The court has satisfied the investigators' request to extend the term for Alexander Stepanov who will have already remained in custody for over a year.

Stepanov was placed on the federal wanted list on charges of large-scale fraud involving the Sberbank loans. The crime he is accused of is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Energomash owner was arrested on February 1.

The suspect owes Sberbank 17.5 billion rubles ($576 million). In addition, Energomash companies and personally Stepanov are in $365 million debt to Kazakh BTA-Bank and have 500 million ruble ($16.6 million) liabilities to its subsidiary ATM-Bank, deprived of its license last summer.

According to the defense attorneys, Stepanov is so far the only suspect in the case, but the investigation continues as by all appearances he could not have effected such multibillion disinvestment transactions on his own.

Energomash group is a leading manufacturer of power engineering equipment in Russia.