MOSCOW, August 1 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Prosecutor’s Office has terminated a deal with former Rosbank Senior Vice President Tamara Polyanitsyna, who is being investigated for corrupt business practices, Izvestia newspaper writes on Friday, citing a law enforcement source.
Polyanitsyna is a suspect in the case of Vladimir Golubkov, former board chairman of Rosbank. In May 2013, the police arrested Golubkov while he was accepting 5 million rubles ($160,000) as part of a larger $1.5 million kickback from a businessman. The executive was allegedly trying to extort the money from Andrei Kovalyov, a former member of the Moscow city legislature and a rock musician, for restructuring an $80 million debt.
Polyanitsyna’s alleged crime was investigated separately because she pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the authorities.
“The prosecutor’s office has not presented an indictment in Polyanitsyna’s case and has returned the case for additional investigation because she has violated the terms of the deal,” the source said.
The investigators have decided to investigate the crimes of Polyanitsyna and Golubkov in a single case. They will be also tried together in a routine procedure.
The newspaper writes that Polyanitsyna allegedly conducted negotiations with Kovalyov and delivered money from him to Golubkov.
Golubkov, who headed Rosbank from 2008 until May 2013, said he was innocent and that his arrest was not linked to a conflict among the bank's executives but possibly stemmed from a dispute between companies.
Rosbank is a private universal bank, part of the French banking group Societe Generale. It serves private and corporate clients and has over 600 offices in 340 cities across Russia. It is one of Russia's top 10 banks in terms of assets.