MOSCOW, August 7 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Commercial Court has set hearings in a lawsuit filed by Vneshprombank seeking 113.5 billion rubles (about $1.8 billion) from the bank’s ex-president Larisa Markus for October 17, court documents read on Monday.
In May, Markus was sentenced to 9 years in prison for embezzling 113.5 billion rubles and later was declared bankrupt on request of VTB24 bank. According to the court sentence, a ruling in the lawsuit filed by Vneshprombank is to be made during civil litigation process.
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.