MOSCOW, June 15 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has reduced detention of former vice-president of the Probusinessbank Vyacheslav Kazantsev charged with embezzlement from 6 to 3 months, the court’s press service has told RAPSI.

Detention terms of managers Sergey Kalachev and Oksana Kravchenko, were reduced as well. All of them will remain in detention until August 3.

Moreover, the court similarly mitigated house arrest of one more defendant Kirill Artemov.
In June 2017, a high-ranking manager of Russia’s Probusinessbank Marina Krylova was sentenced to 3.5 years in a penal colony for assisting with embezzlement of 2.4 billion rubles (nearly $43 million at current exchange rate). Krylova was the head of the bank’s department responsible for interaction with shareholders and subsidiary companies. In addition to giving Krylova a prison term, a court ruled to fine her.

On April 26, ex-head of corporate finances department of Probusinessbank Nikolay Alekseyev was given 4 years in prison in relation to the case. His case was reviewed separately because he had pleaded guilty.

Additionally, Alekseyev was fined 1 million rubles (nearly $18,000). The court also granted a lawsuit filed by Probusinessbank, the victim in the case, seeking to collect over 2.4 billion rubles from the defendant.

According to investigators, from September 2014 to July 2015, Alekseyev, acting as the head of the bank’s corporate finance department, conspired with 15 accomplices to embezzle funds belonging to Probusinessbank. Accomplices are believed to be unidentified managers and employees of the bank. Allegedly, they used their office positions to enroll their subordinates, employees of the “Life” financial group, and heads of sham companies.

In August 2015, the Russian Central Bank revoked the license of Probusinessbank, acting upon the results of an inspection revealing that “the bank’s management carried out large scale operations having markings of assets stripping of the bank.”