MOSCOW, April 25 – RAPSI. The Gidropress construction bureau's management is suspected of embezzling $885,640, the Interior Ministry’s Main Economic Security Department reported on Wednesday.

Gidropress is a subsidiary of the state-owned Rusatom corporation.

Earlier, the Moscow Region Prosecutor’s Office reported that Viktor Mokhov, who heads the bureau, was suspected of inflicting 18 million rubles ($613,000) in damages on Rosatom.

“It was established that the Atomenergoproekt Saint Petersburg Research and Design Institute entered into a contract in 2008 to complete design and experimental activities with Gidropress,” the prosecutor's office reported.

“The director, who is also the chief designer and his deputy are suspected of signing a 26 million ruble ($885,640) contract in 2011 to perform work with a third party commercial organization, which the contractor had no intention of completing from the start.”

According to the ministry, the suspects signed acts on the acceptance and the cost of fake work and transferred 26 million rubles as payment from Gidropress’ account to the contractor. The funds were then transferred to fly-by-night companies controlled by the suspects.

The police are looking for their accomplices and working to establish other incidents of illegal activity by the suspects.

Mokhov was appointed the Gidropress director in August 2011 after nearly all of the firm's management died in a plane crash near Petrozavodsk on June 20.
Gidropress was established on June 28, 1964.