MOSCOW, May 23 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova) – Former president of Vneshprombank Larisa Markus, who had received nine years in prison for embezzling 114 billion rubles (about $2 billion), appealed her sentence, RAPSI learnt on Tuesday from the press-service of Moscow’s Khamovnichesky District Court.

On May 12, the court found Markus and vice-president of the bank Yekaterina Glushakova guilty of large-scale embezzlement. Glushakova was sentenced to four years in a penal colony.

According to the judgment, a ruling on the Deposit Insurance Agency’s lawsuit demanding to recover 113.5 billion rubles from the defendants will be delivered in civil trial.

A representative of Vneshprombank noted earlier that defendants partially compensated the caused damage by transferring 100,000 rubles (about $1,750) to the bank. Overall, claims in the civil lawsuit against the defendants amount to 13 billion rubles (about $228 million).

Investigators believe that Markus along with her brother Georgy Bedzhamov, who once co-owned the bank, created an organized crime group to siphon money from the bank. The group allegedly granted loans to sub-companies and did not refund money to Vneshprombank. Allegedly, from May 2009 to December 2015, conspirators managed to embezzle over 114 billion rubles.

Bedzhamov was arrested in absentia and put on the wanted list.

In March 2016, the Moscow Commercial Court declared Vneshprombank bankrupt. Vneshprombank was one of the top 40 by assets before it lost its license in January of the same year.