MOSCOW, October 24 (RAPSI) - Moscow's Tverskoy District Court has sent nationalist Alexander Belov (Potkin) in pre-trial detention in connection with Kazakhstan's BTA Bank embezzlement case, RAPSI reported from the courtroom.

Belov (Potkin) was placed last week under house arrest by court order.

Investigators filed a motion to detain Belov (Potkin) alleging that he could flee Russia or try to destroy evidence. Investigators claimed that he holds passport with a valid Schenghen visa which allows him to flee from justice.

Investigators believe that Belov (Potkin) was involved in laundering money embezzled from BTA Bank by its former chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.

Ablyazov who allegedly defrauded BTA Bank for more that $6 billion left Kazakhstan for the UK where he was granted political asylum in 2011. 

The Kazakh government acquired in 2009 a stake in defaulted BTA Bank, which came under the control of its sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna. 

Ablyazov was on the run for more than a year after he had been sentenced to 22 months in jail for contempt of London court where BTA Bank lodged its fraud claims.

Ablyazov was arrested in July 2013 in France. Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine are seeking his extradition. Last January a court in Aix-en-Provence gave priority to the application filed by Russia where a criminal case was opened against banker. However, in April a French appeals court blocked the extradition of Ablyazov due to procedural error.