MOSCOW, July 3 (RAPSI) – The former president of the Bank of Moscow, Andrei Borodin, has been charged in an embezzlement case totaling 1 billion rubles (about $30 million), the Interior Ministry announced on its website.

“The Interior Ministry’s Investigative Department, which is investigating the embezzlement of over RUB 1 billion from the Bank of Moscow, has identified the persons who are believed to have been involved in this crime,” the statement reads. “The former top managers of the bank – President Andrei Borodin, First Vice President Dmitry Akulinin and Vice President Alexei Sytnikov – have been charged with large-scale embezzlement and misappropriation by a criminal group assisted by Dmitry Stroganov, head of one of the bank’s departments.”

According to a previous fraud case initiated against Borodin and Akulinin, they used their positions at the Bank of Moscow to transfer at least 50 billion rubles ($1.5 billion) to the accounts of affiliated commercial companies in Cyprus in 2008-2011, the Interior Ministry said. The defendants then laundered the funds via affiliated non-resident companies also registered in Cyprus.

Investigators claimed that the former bankers conducted illegal financial transactions in excess of 623 million rubles ($18 million).

In late 2010, Russia launched a criminal case against Borodin and Akulinin on charges of large-scale fraud involving state funds. They were accused of lending $443 million to shell companies, which then transferred the funds to Yelena Baturina, the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov and the owner of the construction empire Inteco.

Borodin, whose Bank of Moscow was the main investment vehicle under Luzhkov, fled to the UK in 2011. In November 2011, the Russian Interpol bureau put Borodin and Akulinin on the international wanted list. In March 2013, Borodin was granted political asylum in the UK.

On May 27, 2013, the Swiss Office of the Attorney General launched a criminal case against Borodin. It froze the CHF 354 million (around $368 million) in his Swiss bank accounts and declared the Bank of Moscow an injured party in the case. The bank now can file for damages, to be paid from Borodin's frozen funds. Similar lawsuits can also be filed against him in other countries. Last August, other property belonging to Borodin was seized in Latvia.